Time Travel May Not Be So Bad
by Starman3569
Summary: Eureka encounters a couple folks lost in the time stream. But the military's reaction isn't quite what the 1947 Five thought it would be. Can they find their way home with the strangers' help?
1. Chapter 1

Notes: This time, I'm embracing the reboot. Only because I had this idea and I don't know how it's gonna go until I start writing, so here goes. I don't own the Eureka characters, but I do own the additions. Timeline is current through 406, Momstrosity. Reviews welcome! And after seeing 407, as cool as it was, I'm not including Zoe/Zane. That's just weird. This is going to be more along the lines of an episode in length than an ongoing saga

"Two inbound tracks," an Air Force sergeant said to his senior, a Lieutenant. The two were in the NORAD control room at Pederson AFB in Colorado, the new home of Space Defense. "They're not meteors, sir."

"Where are they tracking to?"

"Arizona. And they're decelerating."

The Lieutenant sighed. "Standing orders. Contact General Mansfield in Washington."

"The Army?"

"I don't like it either. Make the call."

Three days later, the sun came up in Oregon just like every other day. Everyone went to work and someone tried to kill themselves… accidentally. This time, the victim was Sheriff Carter, who Dr. Blake was attending to in the infirmary – on his way to the surface, the intrepid Sheriff tripped on the steps and snapped the two bones in his lower arm. And Fearless Leader Fargo was in a tizzy.

"Dr. Blake, I need to see you in private," Fargo said as he interrupted the attending physician.

"Fargo," Carter said, "come on!"

"Let me finish setting this. What's so important?"

"Mansfield called. I have a conference call with him in ten minutes."

"You're handling this pretty well now…"

"Not this time," Fargo said. He tapped his watch and made a walking sign with his index and middle fingers. "That's the topic."

Carter turned serious. "Go," he said.

Alison got a nurse to finish the final layer of casting Carter's arm. She cleaned up and headed to Fargo's office. They had two minutes to discuss things.

"Mansfield likes to see you, Fargo. What am I here for?"

"He can't today. Video conferencing is down and it'll take IT half a day to fix what happened to it."

"What's that?"

"A virus, very nasty thing."

Fargo's phone rang. He put the call straight to speaker. Instead of sitting in one of the desk chairs, Alison took a knee beside Fargo and had his keyboard in front of her to prompt his conversation if necessary.

"Dr. Fargo, is there a reason I'm not seeing you?"

"Video is down, sir," Fargo said. "We're working on it."

"I'll make this as brief as I can. Eureka is about to have a pair of guests, and they aren't from this time. What landing facilities do you have available?"

"We have the helipad and the parking lot. How big are you talking, sir?"

"65 meters long, with a wingspan of 85 meters."

"NO!" Alison typed. "Nowhere to land."

"General, we don't have an airstrip that size. You're talking about something that's bigger than the Space Shuttle."

"They have VTOL capability. Do you have a private, flat piece of land?"

"Not that they won't sink into," Alison wrote.

"How much do they weigh?"

"They adjust their weight. How about that test range where you had your little rocket race? That's private."

"KSC, Vandenburg, A51," Alison typed. "Why here?"

"General, there are facilities that can handle this better than us."

"Dr. Fargo, we've been through this before. Eureka is best equipped to handle this. It's going to take a week for us to truck in 80,000 kilograms of metallic hydrogen for their fuel so they can leave. During that week, like before, you're going to have everyone at your disposal and then some trying to data mine. Are we clear?"

Fargo stopped talking for a couple seconds when he realized the General's implication. Alison looked at him because she didn't have a countermove either. "Forget it," Alison typed. "Say yes and we'll run with it." Alison sent texts to Jo, Carter, and Henry to come to Fargo's office for a meeting of the 1947 Five.

"When will they be arriving, sir?" Fargo asked.

"0300. You'll have two people to deal with and I expect them dealt with as guests and not as prisoners. Are we clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm sending you a narrative file with the information we have on the guests. All indications are that they are telling the truth."

"Where are they coming from?"

"Arizona. That was their initial landing site. Their ships can apparently manufacture hydrogen fuel from air moisture, and over the past three days, they have made enough to make a short suborbital hop to Eureka. Where are they really coming from? 3635."

Alison gave Fargo the cutthroat sign, telling him to end the debate with the General and move on. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I need to go make preparations." Fargo disconnected the call.

"That's a relief," Alison said, "at least he wasn't talking about us."

Alison and Fargo brainstormed for 15 minutes until the rest of the cabal arrived, minus Dr. Old Spice. Fargo laid out what the General sent in the file.

"Two people, a male and a female," he read from the email. "They have ships bigger than our space shuttle with the aerodynamics of a next-generation aircraft. They claim to be here through a space-time disturbance, nothing we're not familiar with, and all they need is fuel to leave us alone and go away. The problem is that their ship's autorefueling system won't work in the desert and if they fire it up to maximum efficiency, it could cause weather problems."

"Maybe they can quietly tell us how to fix our problem," Henry said. "They've already blown their own timeline."

"Mansfield's goons already called me," Jo said. "They shut me down. Apparently, our guests are to have full access to GD for the time being. Either they've put on a good act or a gigantic scare to Mansfield himself. I'm with Henry, let's fix this thing and go home."

"Mansfield said we've done this before," Alison said. "When? Fargo, you have to find out."

"I'm looking and I haven't found it. It might be white listed."

Larry barged into the office with a note in hand. He stopped as soon as he saw he interrupted a meeting, but continued after the shock wore off. "The military is asking for us to send the helicopter to Portland for a pickup at midnight tonight."

"Send it," Fargo said. "Who's coming?"

"Dr. Fontana by special request of the military. What's going on?"

"Nothing you need to know about yet," Fargo said. "Go away."

"That's more of the Dr. Fargo we're used to," Larry said as he left.

"Could this get any worse?" Carter asked.

"Don't say that!" everyone in the room replied.

"Jo, the landing site is the test range," Alison said. "Prep it for two very large spacecraft, lights and all."

"You're going to have to involve Zane in this," Jo confessed. "If they've made a threat that Mansfield is responding to, he'll be able to tell."

"I'll tell him," Fargo said. "Sheriff, the General said we're getting truckloads of fuel for them. Can you secure the mountain road and keep it quiet?"

"Like when we brought the ice core in? Sure."

At 2:30 am, a small convoy of cars left town to the remote hilltop landing site. In addition to the 1947 Five, Tess and Zane were included. As the General predicted, two very large and sleek craft silently glided to the site. Both reflected the floodlights off their jet black surfaces. The only areas not as shiny as Vader's helmet were the chrome pinstriping and the twin cockpits on top. Ladders extended from the fighters to the ground.

Two figures walked to the gathered Eureka braintrust. Both had on black flight suits with shoulderboard ranks and ribbon panels. One was about 5'7" tall and had on a flight helmet that matched the fighter. The other was about 5'2" and had a bluish-silver helmet.

"Go ahead," the taller pilot said as he took off his helmet. "I know you want to look. So let's get that part over with."

"I'm Dr. Douglas Fargo, head of Global Dynamics."

"Commander Scott McClellan. My wingman, when she takes off her helmet, is Star Captain Haley Dalembert. Your boss was pretty straight forward, you get to ask questions for a week and hopefully, after that we're out of your hair. Who's the eager one scanning the fighters?"

"Zane Donovan, particle physicist," Fargo said.

"Yeah, the boss mentioned most everyone here has a science background. I guess it's good that I do too. In another life, I'm an astrophysicist." McClellan straightened his sandy hair and straightened his glasses. "The inner missile pylons have a one megaton yield. The outer pair on each wing are 25 megatons each. The forward bomb bay on each ship has 10 50 megaton weapons while the rear one has a single 250 megaton bomb."

"This one's different," Zane yelled. "Antihydrogen. A shit load of it."

"2,740 kilograms, in round numbers," McClellan said. "Biggest firework in our arsenal."

"That's 118 gigatons of nuclear warhead equivalency," Zane said as he came back to the conversation. "What do you use that for?"

"Making a statement."

"Why does only one ship have one? Yours at that."

"We were coming home from a mission. We turned a 6 kilometer diameter comet to steam with one before it made a most unfortunate impact on a planet."

"Not this one, I hope," Henry said. "I'm…"

"Dr. Henry Deacon," McClellan said. "And I just screwed up, didn't I?"

"You could say that," Henry answered. "Do you always carry weapons?"

"We've been at war for 36 years with one enemy or another," the second pilot said when she took off her flight helmet. Dalembert shook out her blond bangs and ponytail, and much to Zane's surprise, she was pretty easy to look at. "Armament loads can vary, but there's always something to fire."

"It's regulations too," McClellan said. "I'm a ship commander, so in addition to having a wingman at all times, I have to be able to take care of myself."

Tess stepped up from the shadows. "You said you destroyed a comet."

"It took an odd turn around an unusually massive moon. We got the call at 42 hours from impact and made the… what, 102,000," McClellan asked his wingman.

"102,564 actually."

"A rather long trip really. We did the deed, had a customary meeting with the politicians, they got to tell us how good we were, gave us the key to the planet, we slept for a night and headed for home, which happens to be here for us."

"Technically not for me," Haley said. "Human but not from around here. But I do live here."

"You just blew it up and left?" Tess said. "What about researching something like that?"

"I already did," McClellan said. "I saw one crash into a planet before. Comets aren't my thing, but they're nice to look at. My thesis was on supernovas."

"This is Dr. Fontana," Fargo said. "She works with long-range signal detection organizations."

"Looking for life out there, huh?"

"Something like that."

"Well, I guess I'll give you a piece of goodwill. You're looking in the wrong places. Epoch 2000, look at right ascension 14 hours, 15 minutes, 40 seconds by declination plus 19 degrees, 10 minutes, 56 seconds. You'll have more success there than anywhere else. I wouldn't send them any messages though."

"Why not?"

"They've already been here. 500 or so years ago, give or take. They're watching rather closely."

"What star is that?" Tess asked.

"Arcturus. See why I suggested not talking to them?"

"Yeah, that's practically next door."

"Even with their current state of space travel. They're friendly enough, even now, but they might get a little jumpy if you start talking all of a sudden."

"Any place we shouldn't look?"

"You mean are you going to inadvertantly send a signal somewhere and bring in a bunch of badasses to overrun the planet? Yeah, it's safe to say that you probably shouldn't be transmitting anything at this point. Four absolutely no-go zones would be Mizar, Saiph, Vega, and Sirius. You get them stirred up, they'll level the old homestead."


	2. Chapter 2

I changed my mind a bit on where I wanted to go with this. The Zoe/Zane thing makes a return. Just because it's a way to torment the guy (and he seems like he's growing up anyway as he discovers the clues to the time travelling that really exist). I let the additional characters do a lot of talking because that's what the Eureka gang would have done – they're the ones looking for information, so they get the new people talking and let them give away a secret or two. Yeah, it's a little bit of a crazy story, but Eureka's crazy too. Reviews welcome as always! And I do plan on writing the second part after the fade to black. And I had to change the title because I had a hyphen in it that FF took out and it made the title look weird.

"I'd really like to talk about the containment on that bomb," Zane said after he finished his checks.

"Are you done? Unless we're going to spend all night on a cold, humid hilltop, I'd like to secure the ships," McClellan said.

"For now. Can I look again?"

"Sure." McClellan pulled a small device from his flight suit and activated a security system on the fighters. "Anyone approaching will be warned, then the ships will take non-lethal methods to deter any approaches."

"I need to do exams to make sure you aren't carrying anything infectious," Allison said. "We can do that at an infirmary in town."

"Now?" McClellan asked. "Of course, now."

The newcomers rode in a Denali with a couple members of Eureka's security force, Tess, and Zane. The 1947 Five crammed into Carter's Jeep.

"We have about ten minutes to figure something out," Fargo said. "That bomb would take out everything from Vancouver to San Francisco!"

"It's not going to detonate," Henry said. "If it was, they wouldn't be flying with them."

"They seem open enough to telling us what we need to know," Carter said. "The guy seems a little young to be an astrophysicist and a pilot."

"Carter, where do you live?" Allison said. "Think about it."

"Oh, yeah."

"Why was he so forthcoming with locations?" Jo asked. "Henry?"

"Four of the five are within a hundred light years of here. If they do have interstellar capabilities, he's right, they could find us and wipe us out before we could do anything about it. We need to figure out what to ask that they'll answer. They won't tell us everything."

"Fargo," Allison said as she assumed control, "pull the time travel protocols, those can't be white listed. Find out exactly what this timeline says about it and what we can get away with. Carter, there used to be an apartment in City Hall. If it's there now, put them there together."

"Together? Aren't they suspects for now?"

"He's not going to let that girl out of his sight. That way you and Andy can keep a close eye on them both at once. Since we're under orders to stay friendly, tell them they can lose the insignia and medals and go to Café Diem for meals with a plainclothes escort. Anyone at GD who knows about this can interview them at the facility under close scrutiny or in the apartment, preferably the latter option. Now, the question is… I can buy a couple hours with this exam. It's going to be one of the few times they'll agree to be separated. Do I let Tess examine the girl while I ask a whole lot of questions?"

"She already knows," Jo said. "It might be a good idea. I have a feeling she's not the prize here though."

"Why not?" Henry asked. "They have to have some advanced astrophysics knowledge to go where they've been, assuming they're not lying."

"He did all the talking."

"Isn't he a senior officer?" Carter asked. "He gave a Naval rank, but she gave an Army-related one."

"Not necessarily," Jo explained. "There are a few nations on Earth that take Captain out of its slot where our Navy puts it and inserts it in the Army or Marine location. If they have a large enough military, and I'm guessing that's the case, she's an upgraded Captain in the same sense that a naval Lieutenant is a bump up from Junior Grade. So she's probably two grades below him and he has an upgraded Commander rank to go through before becoming a flag officer. And there's a lot more to those two than meets the eye."

"Talk," Allison said.

"If they're telling the truth, he said she took the shot at the comet and destroyed it. Why? Every pair of Navy pilots I've ever come across, the senior officer would take that shot because he'd want it. Yet this one passed it to his wingman, and he called her wingman when they were introducing themselves. If their superiors dispatched them both, it was with the anticipation that he does the shooting, and if he's an astrophysicist like he says, that makes him more qualified to understand the mechanics of it. Notice she didn't give an educational background?"

"I did," Allison said. "Go on."

"He gave her the shot. That's a hell of a lot of trust… it goes beyond trust. He believes in her and he's probably her mentor. Their birds are damn near twins, and if I read their ribbon panels right, they're both as good as they're coming across. What's that helmet of hers made of, Henry?"

"It's not silver. The paint on the fighters is probably a chromium-based solution sealed over to protect it from reentry burns. Maybe osmium, but I can't be sure. What I know is that her earrings, ring, and his wedding ring are all made out of the same metal. Allison, did he look okay to you?"

"No, that's what I'm using to fake this exam. Malnutrition maybe, I won't know until I get the blood samples. He's not just tired from a long flight because she was spry as ever. I know they're not carrying anything." The convoy pulled onto Archimedes Drive. "Jo, Carter, get the apartment ready. Don't bug it, those little gadgets they're carrying are probably handheld do-it-all boxes. We're better off just asking."

"What about us?" Fargo asked.

"You can either take a nap or go to GD and start getting a list of questions together."

"Allison," Henry said in his really sympathetic voice, "we have to ask the question."

"I know," Allison snarled. "Ask the damn question."

The off-site infirmary was disguised as a closed-down medical clinic a couple blocks away from the Sheriff's office. The convoy stopped there and the guests were taken in by security. Tess and Zane started to head back to GD, but Allison stopped her and asked her to do one of the exams and to ask questions while doing it.

"Better than I thought it would be," McClellan observed about the exam room as Allison walked in. "I didn't catch your name up on the hill."

"Dr. Allison Blake, I'm the medical director."

"Examiner and interrogator. Nice combination. Haley's in the waiting room?"

"No, Dr. Fontana's taking care of her exam."

"Oh, she knows her astrophysics and the human body. My life would be easier if my wife had that combination."

"Really?"

"She's a surgeon. I confuse her as much as she does me. Which is fun because she started out life as a psychologist so she's supposed to be able to figure all that out. What do you need? Down to the boxers, right?"

"You're familiar with this routine?"

McClellan unzipped his flight suit. "Yeah, somewhat. I guess the first thing is to explain the scars, right?"

Allison gasped at her first glimpse. "Let's start there."

"Left arm… gunshot wound from a sniper, including an anticoagulant and a biological infection. The chest tube scars are from my first wife's attempt to kill me by putting a aerosolized fungal infection in my cockpit. The scar up the outside of the right leg is where my femur was replaced because of a tumor in the bone. And the knee scars were to remove a benign tumor 12 years ago and a malignant one a month ago. Did I miss anything?"

"What about the scratches on your right hand? And the surgery scar on your abdomen."

"Ah, that would be the seven week old kitten my wife brought home. And a transplanted pancreas."

"Before I start anything, I guess you know you don't look so good."

"Three weeks ago ended a stretch of 58 days I spent in a jungle with only 42 days of field rations to eat. No animal life to kill whatsoever and the plants, which I was surrounded by, were either non-nutritional or outright poisonous. I ran out of potable water from my fighter a couple days before they finally found me. Two weeks in the hospital, home for a few days before the wife had to go away, Haley came home, and the boss called us out to go blow up a comet, and bang, here I am."

"She came home? Daughter from another marriage?"

"Oh, God, no. Without going into great detail, she's not from around here and needs to learn how to politely handle society before being released into it. That's part of my job. No, I'm 27 and she's 21, we think anyway."

"You think?"

"She's from another galaxy. A ship I ran picked her up when we checked on the end locations of some early expeditions outside the galaxy. Her parents are human, but not from Earth. Speaking of that," McClellan said as he took off his glasses, "since you're the doctor in charge, I need something from you. If you'll put those on, I'll explain."

"I don't wear…"

"You're not going to need to see through my lenses, just what they're projecting. They're a computer with a link to my fighter's database." Alison took the glasses and put them on. "You're seeing the molecular structure of a medication. It's actually an immune booster, something that I'm not sure your time has a chemical to do. You usually use vaccines, right?"

"Generally, yes."

"Because Haley's not from here, she's got some health issues as Dr. Fontana's going to discover. One of them is a compromised immune system. In addition to being several generations removed from Earth onto a relatively sanitized planet, she's removed from that as well. She needs that to stay around and she has three days left. Two days after that, the problems will set in."

"This looks like a combination of some things we have now. I'll need a sample to compare the final product to." Allison took notes on a portable GD pad. When she finished, she handed the glasses back to their owner. "Do those things give you a headache?"

"At first, they did. It's a hell of a lot more inconvenient when they respond to a voice command during a fire fight though." McClellan dropped a pink pill into Allison's hand. "When I came here, I asked for fuel to get home. That's the only other thing I absolutely have to have."

"What about your medications? With all the transplants, you have to be on an immunosuppressant or two."

"Oh, I forgot, you have transplants in 2010, don't you? Three of 'em actually. And I have a month's worth. I get sick of pills after a while. Kind of ironic though, if I take that, my body goes insane and starts attacking the replacement parts. She takes one of mine and hers just stops."

"You have an odd sense of humor."

"Nah, just jaded. The right hand is the easiest blood draw, if you can find a patch that Kitty hasn't tried to eat."

"We can hit the other hand if it's okay."

"The left hand's my money hand. Go up the arm. I'm left-handed and our fighters have specialized cockpits. Mine's backwards from a righty, my throttle is on the right side for instance so I can run everything with the left."

"Why are you still wearing those glasses? You don't have surgery?"

"Until three years ago, I wasn't a candidate. The eyes changed too much for them to correct with surgery. And my wife had eye surgery and said it was terrifying. I don't like that prospect. Plus every girlfriend I've ever had says my glasses disarm me to them and make me sensitive and approachable."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. My wife said that they make me look a little vulnerable or maybe a little more human. We met on a mission and I was her C.O., so she's got that opinion as well. I don't command with an iron fist unless I have to… but when I do, I'm not afraid to trump up charges and take it straight to mutiny. If the glasses soften me up to people just by appearance, I'll take it."

"You weren't a candidate for eye surgery because of your pancreas, right?"

"Very good! Yeah, damn thing was crazy and no one caught it. And you got in in two minutes. Besides, the glasses actually do better than the surgery. And I can do cool stuff like call across the galaxy with my eyewear."

"How are you going to get home?"

"Let the real interrogation begin," McClellan said. "In over 99 percent of natural time displacement cases, if you do exactly what you did to get there, you'll get home, and I mean to your home. When we leave Earth, we won't go straight back to where we came from. We'll go to where Earth was when we set a heading for home and backtrack from there. A week or so shouldn't make any difference."

"Do you use wormholes to travel?"

McClellan turned to face Allison, who had a blood draw needle in hand. "So you're familiar with the problem?"

"No, but I'm here in a science town. You pick up things."

"I'll bet you do. No, we don't use them. Our attempts throughout history at wormhole travel have been less than successful. Natural phenomena tend to be two-way. Artificial wormholes haven't been so bidirectional. It's in the dead science category now, except for events like this one."

"So no one has reversed an artificial wormhole to go back to exactly where they came from?"

"Not that I know of, but I'm certainly no expert in the matter. I probably have some of the records in my ship's computer that I can censor just so you can see the effects."

If Allison had a medical monitor on, her heart beat and respirations would have dropped off the table with the relief she felt at hearing the news that going back would be next to impossible. "Let's get your blood. How are you feeling now?"

"Frazzled and worn out. All I want to do is sleep. What time is it and what time will you be done with us?"

"It's about 3:30 in the morning. We should have you in your quarters in a couple hours."

"Any chance you could get Dr. Fargo to let us sleep in for a while? The last few days have been a little stressful."

"I think I can arrange that. How long have you been awake?"

"Close to 24 hours."

"Take a nap. Next up is imaging."

"Gladly. I love sleep."

Half an hour after the lead pilot laid down for his nap, Allison woke him up. She and Tess were in the exam room together. Tess had a list of questions, primarily concerning her examinee.

"Just a second," McClellan said as he fooled with his glasses. "I'm getting your answer."

"Take these," Allison said to Tess as she handed her fellow doctor a couple pills. "You'll need them, but you'll love what you're about to see."

"Your partner has more drugs in her system than we could figure out. I won't go into the reproductive detail since I figure you already… what the hell happened to you?" Tess asked as she saw the scars for the first time. "You look awful."

"Two months, not enough food and water, cancer, gunshots, and infections."

"You're both in not-so-good shape. What doctor said you could fly?"

"Didn't really ask. This wasn't a combat mission. We went to save three and a half billion people from an impact."

"And no one else could do it?"

"When that many lives are on the line, they send in the best. That's us. Here," McClellan said. "That's what you found in her bloodstream. Lose the reading glasses and put these on."

"What am I looking at?" Tess asked as her eyes adjusted.

"That's the molecular formula for the combination medicine you found. Dr. Blake has the immune booster formula already. This one is a once a month injection and she has one in her kit on the fighter, so we're good for six weeks."

"And this does what?"

"It's the female replacement drug. You've found that those parts aren't quite working right. This medicine does pretty much everything."

"Eight elements," Tess said. "Just over a thousand atoms. Allison, is the other one this complex?"

"Not even close."

"I don't plan on being here for six weeks. If you want these plans, they're yours. If you can have it done in a week, I'll take it."

"What else did you find?" Allison asked.

"Her immune system's being held together by the other drug. I guess as long as the drugs keep flowing, she'll keep living. The job isn't the cause of either though. The reproductive issues are inherited mutations. Can I borrow these for a few minutes?"

"Sure."

"I'll copy this information to a portable and save a lot of typing," Tess said. "You and I need to talk."

"Me?" Allison asked.

"No, him. I want to know a few things. Who do I set up an interview with?"

"Fargo will schedule it. I'm putting them both to bed after exams for at least eight hours," Allison said.

"That little tyrant will barely give me ten minutes."

"I'll talk to him. You'll get your time."

Tess left the room. "She's pissed at me," McClellan said. "That'll be a fun Q and A."

"You said you're the best. I guess you meant the team, right?"

"I did. She and I are good separately, but together, it's been exponentially better."

"How did someone get to be the best in four years?"

"When we picked up Haley and the other kids, who are all dead because the doctors were too slow to figure out what happened, they were on a military ship with five pilots and a doctor who had relatively limited equipment on hand. They spent eight months with us while we carried on with our mission, but their health problems didn't show up full force until we got to Earth. Anyway, they learned things from us. Tell me something, how hard was it to learn to fly or drive a hundred years ago?"

"Compared to now?"

"Yeah."

"I guess it would be harder because the technology was new."

"The same thing applies for space flight in our day. I went from a doctoral program at 17 to an O-3 flying strike missions at 18. Haley's got it and I can't define it any more than that. She caught onto everything my crew was teaching. She learned how to read from her parents and a computer on board their wrecked ship. As far as raw intelligence, she's got that too. If you're wondering, no one is forcing her to do what she's doing, and she doesn't even have to do that. At this point, she doesn't have to work really."

"At her age?"

"My crew's not exactly a bunch of saints. They pulled off an intergalactic snatch-and-grab from a long-dead planet worth a lot of money. I didn't get any of it, I don't have to have it because of my family's business. Nevertheless, they made it a little more acceptable to me by giving the lion's share to the kid who didn't have a chance to get into society until she was a late teen. Anyway, there are naturals in the cockpit. The all-star crew I work with, they're all naturals."

"And she is too?"

"If you take my kill count, she's got years to go. Divide it by the number of sorties we've flown, and hers is higher."

"What kind of a society are you running?"

"Dr. Blake, you can talk to her if you want. I'll stay out of it. Her job is to kill what I say to kill and to make sure I don't get killed. She knew that when she signed up to be in the military. For someone who was born and spent the first 17 years of her life in a wrecked spacecraft wondering where her next meal was coming from, I think she's done remarkably well adjusting to society. Trust me, she's happy and she knows all her options. In fact, in the one conversation I laid them all out, she told me before I even started that she wasn't ever going anywhere. Are we done with this?"

"One more question. When we were on the hill, I gathered that you let her shoot the comet, right?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"In this order. Trust, belief, and I'm not up to the job. Plus I wanted to see it explode. Who wouldn't? You can tell Dr. Fontana that I hung back to record data and the explosion. I'll make that information available to her."

"How? Can you transfer it to us?"

"Maybe. For now, I can put one of you in the back seat of my fighter and show you what you want to know."

"You can?"

"Yeah, I mean, you sit there and read and I pick what you see. Nothing too hard about that. Speaking of hard, am I gonna have to see that Mansfield guy again?"

"He might be in town. Why?"

"Because he's Army brass. We have two services, one that is the Navy or Air Force. The other is the Army or the Marines. Yes, I've studied this time's history just because I like it. I hate the Army higher-ups and that guy could come back with us and fit right in. I'm friends with some of them, but not their bosses."

"Service rivalries never go away. Unfortunately, Eureka's an Army project."

"It's more than a rivalry. There are Fleet pilots who'd turn down an assignment because it involves ground work."

"And you're above it?"

"Let's say I can be friendlier than most. Of course, a few of them have saved me too. I have 5,000 grunts on my ship for security against boarding and anything else I can come up with."

Tess barged into the exam room in a near-panic. "How are you breathing?" she asked.

"Been better but it's not horrible. Why?"

"Because of all the trauma or what?"

"Tess," Allison said as she pointed to one of the monitors above the bed, "he's breathing fine. Not perfect, but it's well above any distress line."

"His partner isn't. You said she wasn't from Earth. Where?"

"I can't tell you where, just because you don't even know it exists yet. It won't be catalogued for another 400 years."

"No, no, just tell me about it. You said it was relatively sanitized. What does that mean?"

"Ah, hell," McClellan said. "It's pristine. She was born on an untouched planet. Aside from their ship, there was no technology at all."

"What's the problem?" Allison asked.

"Good money says it's pollution," McClellan said. "And it's going to get me too."

"Why?" Allison said.

"Because in their day," Tess said, "there isn't any. I'll bet there's fusion everywhere. Their idea of pollution is too much helium in the air. Even here with smart cars and such, there's more pollution than they've ever been exposed to."

"Give that doctor the prize," McClellan answered. "What's the answer?"

"I'll bet Earth's not entirely clean, so it won't be like you've never been exposed to anything bad. Electrostatic mask for him," Tess said. "A couple hours on oxygen and it should work for her too."

Allison sprayed her patient with the high-tech filter, which immediately started levelling out his breathing. It didn't help the mood in the room.

"Are we going to live a week here without something else trying to kill us?" McClellan asked.

"I think you'll make it. She's already doing better, I'm watching her monitor."

"I always followed the rules the first time through a problem. Guess how many times I've been transmitted to another time?"

"First time?"

"After I've been there, I'll make my own plan and do what I think's right. I don't want it to kill my wingman."

"Where's she from?"

"We call it GSB 2629B, it's in the general direction of the Virgo Supercluster. It's 11 million light years from here, and it's a place that's gonna give the Milky Way a lot of good things and it's gonna be the tripwire for a conflict that none of us, and by that I mean everyone here, is remotely prepared to deal with in my day or yours."

"This town was an ultimate product of a war, you know."

"War's not always a bad thing. Neither's a bigger badass up the street, and that's what we tripped into. I guess this is where I tell the story, isn't it?"

"We're through the prologue already."

"Our half of the galaxy, ever so creatively called the Alliance of Planets, was at war with the other half. The bosses decided to send out a small scout ship to investigate what happened to long-forgotten missions outside the galaxy. Guess who drew that assignment?"

"You?"

"It was my ship. Five pilots and a doctor. We were close to one of those forgotten expeditions when I found the location in the database, close enough to bounce off course and check it out. We found nine kids all making their way hunting and gathering and being primitive. Eight of them passed because of the problems Dr. Fontana found with Haley. They seemed to latch onto the adults and she was in my pocket the whole time. So, when we found out she's got it, it was only logical to keep the pairing alive."

"You're not the best officer in your military, are you?"

"You mean do I bend over and take the bullshit? No. I stick up for myself and that's got me into a lot of trouble. Fortunately, Fleet's boss likes me a lot and has figured out how to manipulate me into doing a lot of distasteful stuff for her. Bailed me out of a lot of self-imposed crap. I'm the guy everyone would love to have in their command but they don't want to deal with my baggage. The boss takes a lot of heat for me, so I try not to call it down on her. I gotta get home."

"What if you can't?"

"Then we can't stay here, not on Earth. You're not ready and we might bring attention to this corner of the galaxy. If we stay in this time, there are a few planets out there that could recognize the technology and decide it's a threat. I know a couple places we could go, tell our story to the right people, drop the right names, and get a safe haven to live out our lives. Dr. Blake, this is not our time, it's yours. We're intruders that have got to go. Even if we go back through the irregularity that led us here and some things are different, we'll figure it out and make it work. Physics, for once, is on our side. I'm just hoping no one spotted us inbound here or we might have to go clean up the trouble."

"You could always help," Tess said from the doorway.

"We only have the weapons that you see on our ships and that's not quite enough to take care of a major problem. It's enough to give someone a bloody nose and make them think about what they're doing, but I'd rather not do that either. How is Haley?"

"Stable now. I guess cleaning up Earth might not have been such a good idea to come."

"Earth is Earth," McClellan said. "Just the way it is. It's home regardless of what the calendar says."

Fargo kept everyone at bay until evening fell since it was well after dawn when the new twosome headed for their temporary quarters above the Sheriff's office. Thanks to Allison, Tess was the first interviewer to get access to the pilots. She was concerned about interstellar signals and learned quite a bit about politics during her time. The second visitor, whose time Tess intruded on for quite a bit, had other things in mind, things that interested him.

"Dr. Donovan," McClellan said after answering the door, "it's your turn?"

"Not officially. Where's your partner?"

"Sleeping. This air's not real good for her."

"Wanna take a walk?"

"People here you don't trust?"

"We're gonna talk about that."

"Me?"

"No. I know the signs of antihydrogen when I see 'em. You might be the only thing in this town that's the real deal."

"I could use a drink. Is there a bar in town?"

"You drink?" Donovan asked in shock.

"Yeah, I do. Once in a while, too much. Is this a dry town?"

"No, you can get something at Café Diem."

"Let's go then."

Zane and McClellan left the city hall building and walked over to the café. Virtual Vince was running things on the overnight. He served alcohol, which showed his programming had been repaired.

"What's on your mind?" McClellan asked over a shot of whiskey and a beer.

"How much do you know about time travel?"

"The basics, I guess. I heard some stuff in school and the military gives all pilots a course on how to react… well, calling three hours a course might be overstating it. It's not my field and it doesn't generally intersect with my field, so I'm limited. Why?"

"Do you have information with you?"

"The fighter's database is pretty extensive. Again, why?"

"This town has a celebration once a year called Founder's Day," Zane explained. "Ever since this year's, people have been strange. Not everyone though, just a few."

"I'm not a holiday person. Maybe they're not either."

"Come on."

"Sorry," McClellan said. "Your time, your talky-talk."

"I couldn't put it together until last night. The five people who aren't themselves, they were all out on the hill. Every one of 'em."

"How are they changed?"

"Dr. Blake seems to be taking charge of things more than she used to. The Sheriff and Jo, they're not busting my ass nearly like they used to. Fargo is nicer. And Henry, he seemed very, very nervous with his wife."

"There could be perfectly logical explanations for all that."

"Not for physical evidence," Zane said. "Shortly after Founder's Day, Eureka hired a town historian. I had to research him and his entire background is a fake. I know, I've faked my own more times than I can count."

"Slip up in the personnel department. Report him."

"That wedding ring of yours… and all your partner's jewelry. What's it made of? That's not silver."

"Osmium, sealed to avoid osmium tetroxide from forming. It's just a thing with the three of us, we like the color and it's unusual enough for people to wonder about. Haley's black diamonds are asteroid-mined."

"The three of you?"

"Haley, Zoe, that's my wife, and me. We're a little closer than you might think."

"You know your jewelry. What about your wife's engagement ring?"

"She had it made, it's a one of a kind out of the osmium we obtained elsewhere, plus it has black and white diamonds."

"So if you saw it, you'd recognize it?"

"Oh, yeah. I paid more than most people make in a lifetime for it."

"A couple weeks ago, Lupo threw this at me," Zane said. He handed the ring from Jo's necklace to McClellan. "This is my grandmother's ring, from my apartment." Zane handed over the exact copy.

"This is a damn good copy," McClellan commented. "Impressive work."

"No, that's just it. It's no copy. I took them out to my lab and ran tests on each of them. It's the exact same ring, the diamonds have the exact same composition, and the mount has a slight flaw in it. They are the same down to the molecular level."

"Okay, I'll bite. What do you want to know?"

"Is there any way to figure out how they did it if they did?"

"You got a car?"

"Yeah. Road trip to your ship?"

"If I have something, you can see it. Dr. Donovan…"

"Zane."

"Zane, you're gonna come up empty."

"I have to at least try. Something is not right in this town."

"What do we need to do about my suits-and-sunglasses crew outside? I guess you don't want this to be seen."

"I know one of them, he'll take a long coffee break if I ask. His partner hates going outside of paved roads. Can you darken your cockpit glass?"

"It's not technically glass, it's lead crystal, but yeah, I can. Standard procedure in star systems. Why?"

"Because they've got a team watching the ships on an adjacent hill. What kind of sound system do they have?"

"Sufficient to blow the doors off pretty much anything."

"Serious?"

"The one in my cockpit is rated to put out 100 decibels. Our fighters are ours, literally. That ship is my transportation when I'm home, complete with a thermonuclear loadout, in case there's trouble. If I go out and pick up take out for the family, I do it in my fighter most of the time. The cockpits are modular, and I have one for short humans, so I have some room between the space frame and the cockpit to play with. Among other things, I put in a speaker system and storage space for a ton of music. If I'm gonna spend hours and hours in the seat, I'm going to make it as comfortable as possible. Why's that matter?"

"Laser mics. You might need to turn it on to keep them from watching."

"We're ready for that. The polarization routine that darkens the cockpits also puts a molecular vibration through them. Knocks out pretty much any surveillance methods."

"Nice!"

"We take security seriously."

Zane took care of the guards and he and McClellan headed out of town for the landing zone. On the way, Zoe called Zane from Harvard, a very short conversation that Zane ended before saying anything he didn't want her to know.

"Zoe?" McClellan asked.

"Sheriff's daughter. He can't stand me talking to her. But he's taking it surprisingly well."

"Oh. What's she look like?"

"Brown hair, short, cute." Zane handed over his phone after finding a picture of Zoe.

"There's my Zoe," McClellan said. He traded devices with Zane, who let go of the wheel. "What the hell!"

"Smart asphault. The car drives itself!"

"Goddamn, that's scary."

"Your fighter doesn't have an autopilot?"

"Oh, it does. Doesn't mean I scare the passenger with it."

Zane looked at the picture of the pixie-cut brunette on McClellan's handheld unit. "She from Earth?"

"Canada actually."

"She's older than you, isn't she?"

"9 years."

"See, this song is one of the things that happened to me," Zane said. Kid Sister's Daydreaming came on the car's radio. "The last time Jo wrote me up at work was for playing this too loud in my lab. She won't do it now. Little shit, that's what she used to gig me on, but now, I can get away with it."

"I'd probably shoot someone if they got that picky with me."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. I had a temper before I got promoted and married. I knew my way to and around the stockade. You think it's bright to screw with a cop's kid?"

"Carter can take it. And I really like her. What's the most insane thing you've ever done in that ship?"

"Insane on duty or insane off duty?"

"Both. I have a little thing I fly around on occasion myself."

"On duty, I came out of translight speed to a dead stop inside the shielding of an enemy ship and blew it away. That got me a Medal of Honor and a Distinguished Flying Cross. Off duty. That's hard, I've done some insane stuff."

"What was involved in the on duty event?"

"A part of our territory was being terrorized by this new, mean enemy ship. It had to go and our bombs were just bouncing off the shields. I wasn't feeling like living any more and I knew a backdoor into the shields, so I used it. A pair of 900 megaton nukes later, and it's dead. The off duty thing, that one got me transferred because the ship commander couldn't handle me afterwards."

"Oh?"

"Our hangar decks are midships. They're long and receive ships on the port side. Catapults and launch tubes go out the starboard side. I flew through the hangar deck, dodged the ship boss's fighter, and shot right down his tube."

"How much clearance?"

"No more than half a meter. He tried to put me in front of a flight board for it, but someone in the Admiralty saved my ass and got me out."

"Take me up."

"They're not gonna let me go joyriding, as much as I like to."

"Oh, they will," Zane said with a smile. "Fargo will make it happen or I'll make his life a living hell."

"Blackmail collateral's only good for so long," McClellan said.

"I just came by this chit a few weeks ago so it's fresh. He'll do it or he'll pay."

"You get permission, I'll take you on a ride that'll flatten you in the seat. What are your thoughts on time travel?"

"The physics of it?"

"I want to know what you want to find."

"What every good scientist is after. Answers."

"I still think you're gonna come up without any."

"You mind if I see if your wingman wants to have lunch or something?"

McClellan smiled. "She does like science types. You can try, but I don't think you'll get anywhere there either."

"You're a science type, if what you said at the landing zone is right."

"Uh-huh. You're not really her type and she does carry a gun. You might want to keep that in mind before you try to get serious."

"In other words, she's yours and you're not letting go?"

"That's one way of looking at it."

"What's another way?"

"I'm hers and she's not letting go. Truth be told, that's probably more accurate."

"Scratch that idea then."

"Nah, don't scratch it. I'm just letting you know, you're not gonna get anywhere flirting with her."

"Zoe's coming home the day after tomorrow, she might get mad."

"Did you test everything about the rings?"

"Everything I could think of. What just popped into your head?"

"What's your theory with them, these people who you suspect of doing bad?"

"I think they're from different times… holy crap, it might just be that easy."

"Radiodate the rings. If you can get an age on something, any part of them, you can conclude an age difference. That proves your theory… or disproves it. Assuming non-organic matter doesn't change when it goes through a time displacement."

"What about a control?"

"I can't give you a test case. Everything I came through with doesn't have a counterpart in this time to test. You'll have to go blind."

"How much training have your people given you?"

"About time travel? Not much. It doesn't happen often and we're not in the business of bouncing around the time universe. I do have another idea for you though."

"I'm listening."

"Haley started breathing very badly during her exam. Dr. Fontana concluded that it's pollution in the air from all the things you power with fossil fuels. My fighter's going to be coated in that crud after sitting there for a week. If what you think is true really is true, that those five people aren't a part of this time stream, they may have residual particles from the other time."

"She cleaned it. I already checked."

"My wife puts her stuff in a jar of cleaning solution by the bed every Friday night. It's been there for a year. I'd have those particles in the suspension."

"Lupo would never give that to me…"

"Not that I would ever suggest crime as an answer, but…"

"Oh, no, no, no way. She used to be Carter's lackey and now she's head of security for Global Dynamics. Even I couldn't get in her new house."

"Have you cleaned the ring? Your answer might still be there."

"How?"

"You said she threw it at you. That means she touched it. There's your organic matter that made the trip."

"DNA testing destroyed what she left."

"How long are we going to have before the suits have to report back to work?"

"An hour, maybe a little more. I told them where we'd be so they won't get their asses ripped for letting you go."

"Zane," McClellan asked, "come clean. Why are you doing this?"

"I was in the cell in the Sheriff's office, seems like my apartment more than my actual apartment does. Jo came in and told me that she'd marry me. I laughed it off. Some other stuff happened in the interim. A couple weeks ago, the ring incident happened. I told her we'd have words over it, and we did. You remember your first kisses?"

"Maybe not fondly, but I do."

"Awkward most of the time, right?"

"For the most part. Come to think of it, only the last two weren't weird."

"Wife and the girlfriend?"

"Yep."

"I kissed Lupo. And it wasn't the first time it happened. It was natural."

"When we get there, you'll go in the back seat. Put on the helmet because some of the information will be displayed through its interface, some will be on the screen that's in front of you, and some will come up in the cockpit canopy. Most of the ground controls are virtual and you'll see those through the flight helmet. I'll lock out everything but time travel information and you'll have your time with it, no pun intended."

"Thanks."

"I'm only giving you the keys, you gotta learn to fly it. Do you have an actual time scheduled?"

"Tomorrow at noon."

Zane pulled onto the hilltop and the two left his car and took their respective seats in the fighter. "It's set up," McClellan said. "Time travel is all there. If you have questions, just ask and I'll hear you."

"Do you fly with all these controls in the air?" Zane said as he started figuring out how to navigate through the database.

"No. Those are ground-only. The information comes in through all three ways, but only actual physical controls are used, especially in combat."

McClellan took a bit of a nap while Zane read through report after report of people who travelled through time to other places and separate time streams. Almost an hour after his search began, he came across the information that could change things in Eureka.

"Hey," Zane said, "Commander… wake up!"

"Just Scott. What did you find?"

"You know what an Omicron particle is?"

"Never heard of it."

"Can you read what's on the monitor?"

"Yeah," McClellan said. He read a report on the particle, which acted like static electricity, but only when someone used artificial means to travel through time. The safe exotic particle stayed with the travellers for six to eight months, during which time it slowly bled away without any harmful side effects. "I did not know that. There's my new thing for the day."

"Can you scan them?"

"Probably," McClellan said. He started checking through the various scanner modes available from his fighter's electronics. The Omicron particle was listed. "It's on the forward panel of the cockpit. Three strong signatures. Not five."

"That's okay," Zane said with glee in his voice. "I know where those three are. That's Fargo's house, Lupo's house, and Henry's garage."

"Those readings are pretty consistent. What about the cop and the doctor?"

"How sensitive is this scanner?"

"What are you asking me to look through?"

"Carter lives in an old Cold War bunker and his place is on the far side of town from here. Must be their night to stay at his house."

"Oh, this town's starting to remind me of my ship more and more. It's always a surprise to find out who's screwing who. No, I probably can't get a signature out of that place, especially if it's designed to be nuke-resistant."

"Let's go wake up one Global Dynamics chief of security," Zane said.

"Be respectful. Just find out what happened. You've got your proof."

Zane stayed quiet for the car trip to Jo's house. Much to his surprise, she was awake, but shocked to see Zane and his friend show up at her door in the middle of the night.

"I got you," Zane said. "And you can thank our guests for giving me the information. Now that I know what to look for, I'll peg everyone and everything that's ever set foot one second outside this timeline."

"You're crazy, Zane," Jo said. "What are you talking about?"

"You had my grandmother's ring, Lupo. Now I have two of 'em. Two identical diamonds. That just doesn't happen in nature. You brought it with you from some other time."

"Did you start drinking?"

"Ma'am," McClellan said, "he's not bluffing, and I'll apologize ahead of time for giving him the ammo to go after you. I'll go ahead and assume you know some of the basics. Your body has a quantity of a surprisingly safe exotic particle that my fighter can scan for, one that is exclusively generated by artificial time travel. We detected three hotspots, and those are apparently this residence, Dr. Fargo's residence, and Dr. Deacon's place of work. The assumption is that the other two spots are inside Sheriff Carter's residence, which is radiation-shielded."

Jo sighed, opened her door, and let the two guys into her living room. Zane had a look in his eye like he was never going to stop pursuing the matter.

"I'll go to the ethics board and for once, I won't be sitting at the defense table," Zane said.

"You can't do that," Jo said. "Do you know what will happen?"

"You'll all get thrown out of town. That's what will happen. I'll move up and you'll be working for some floundering dot com out there in the hills of Montana. I don't care how it goes down, I'll be able to do research without passive-aggressive curiousity."

"You're wrong. Zane, the ethics board will never hear it. This goes straight to the military and they'll throw everyone and everything associated with it into a hole that will make extraordinary rendition of terrorists look like a spa trip. At the absolute best, that would be the five of us. At worst, they'll throw families in there too."

"They can't do that," Zane said. He figured out Jo's implication.

"Kevin, Jenna, Zoe, and Grace are on the block too. You want me, fine, you can bitch me out and hold it over my head. Don't do it to them."

"I want to know what happened," Zane said. "How did you get that ring?"

"You gave it to me on Founder's Day," Jo said. "Five of us found ourselves in 1947. The problem is or was that six people came back to 2010."

"Grant," Zane said. "I was right about him."

"Yeah, you were. He was one of the town's founders back in the day and he came back with us. He helped us get back, but he used us too."

"I proposed to you?"

"We dated for over a year. You grew up somewhere along the line. I can name three things that you did in my timeline that you didn't do here."

"Like what?"

"You gave Mrs. Spedaro over three million dollars to start giving her award again. That's the money you stole right before you were recruited to come here. That first week you were here, you saved the town by stopping the Big Bang experiment's explosion…"

"I was half way to Portland."

"I read your file. I know. You and Carter fired a rocket into a kid's science experiment to shut down a functioning star that might have taken out a good chunk of Oregon and Idaho eventually."

"Huh?" McClellan said. "A star?"

"Her assignment was to make a working model of the solar system. It included a working sun," Zane said with a little smile. "It was pretty cool… until it was 110 degrees at six in the morning and no one slept because of it."

"I like it. Not the blazing heat, but the concept is excellent."

"Henry and Carter shot the iron into it to shut it down," Zane said. "I was the first one on the bus to get the hell out of town. That's not me though, I'm nobody's hero."

"Yes, it is you," Jo said. "You wouldn't have checked out Grant if you didn't care. If you don't want to change, to show that you actually give a damn about something other than yourself, do it for Zoe."

"What else is different?" Zane asked. "What did that fucker do? And how did you get to that time anyway?"

Jo stared at Zane. "Are you keeping your mouth shut? Because this is as serious as it gets."

"There's one other person that deserves to know, and even though I think she's a bigger bitch than you, I'm going to drop her a hint to figure something out. Other than that, yeah, I'll stay quiet."

"Einstein's bridge device. I don't know how or why it picked the five of us. But it did. In the other time, Kevin's autistic and almost completely shut off from the world. Here, he's a normal teenager. Henry and Grace weren't married. We dated and you proposed. Tess and Carter broke up when she took a job in Australia, but Carter figured it wasn't going to work out anyway, but here, she was waiting for him in the bunker. And Fargo wasn't director, Allison was."

"You didn't mention Zoe."

"She's the same, except for the new hairstyle, but I'm not sure that can be blamed on time travel. Probably because she was 3,000 miles away from the events when they happened. I'll tell the others about this and hopefully Mansfield's investigation of the other stuff won't get in the way."

"I need to get out of here," McClellan said. "I turned on the self-refueler to get the process started."

"You need to stay for the whole week," Zane said. "Mansfield shut that down while you're in town. If you stay, that buys them… it buys us time to figure something out."

"Are you in?" Jo asked. "All in or all out."

"I'm in. If Mansfield ever finds out I know, he'll throw me in that hole with you just because he doesn't like me."

"I'll set up a meeting with the others and get them up to speed," Jo said. "Commander, I'd like you at that one to tell them about this particle that tipped you off. Then I'll break the news that you're in."

Zane nodded. "I won't mess up."

"Go home, I'd like to have a word with your new best friend here. I'll take him back to City Hall when I'm done."

"Thanks," Zane said as he left the house. "I mean it."

"I didn't know he'd find the answer to all his questions," McClellan said. "I didn't even know there was one."

"He's pretty resourceful. Why didn't you know?"

"I'm an astrophysicist, not a particle physicist or anything close to dealing with time travel. I do what I can to stay current, but honestly, my job titles, in order, are fighter pilot, ship commander, and astrophysicist. The science, while I do get to play on occasion, isn't my primary job."

"It's been six months since I went back. I still have these particles in me?"

"According to the paper he found, yes. It takes anywhere from six to eight months for them to totally go away. But you're not in danger, they're benign, which is totally atypical for exotics, they usually get ugly and keep getting worse in a hurry. The author suspects there's some biological tie because they don't go away from people at the same rate, and if it was a standard decay, it would be a set rate for everyone."

"What did it say about people who travel twice?"

"Just from what I've heard in the last five minutes, why the hell would someone tempt fate by doing that? It said nothing, but judging by the behavior of the particles and how they load onto the body, a second trip probably reloads the quantity. Why?"

"Because Carter was dragged back a second time."

"And you're worried about Zane telling how to detect the particles?"

Jo smiled. "I should be scared to death of him right now, but I'm not. Go figure."

"How did this guy tag along with you when you came back?"

"We had markers made from our phones and some stuff they found back then. He retuned Carter's and used it to make the trip. If Carter hadn't been with Allison when we came back to 2010, he would have been stranded."

"I'd have shot the sonofabitch for trying to do that to me."

"Carter has amazing restraint."

"Judging by what you said earlier, he ruined your life, he scrambled Dr. Deacon's, he helped Dr. Fargo, he tremendously boosted Dr. Blake's, and, well, he tried to leave the Sheriff behind. Two good, two bad, and one to be determined. I still think shooting him would be a good idea. But I can't imagine what Dr. Blake went through. I'm lucky in that respect."

"How do you mean?"

"I have a two year old daughter who's absolutely perfect. I can't imagine her being autistic and closed off to me. I'm still waiting to see how my twins will turn out though."

"How old are they?"

"Two and a half months. They were delivered at 20 weeks, so they haven't been out of the hospital yet and my wife's been spending time in a secret location with them."

"Why hide them?"

McClellan reached into his pocket and handed Jo a folded piece of paper. "That's some intercepted intelligence we came across from our new enemy. It's a wanted poster. Those are service photos from our personnel files. Recognize anyone?"

"You're first and your partner is second."

"Three, four, and five are all friends too. Three is my executive officer. Four has been with me for a long time, she was my plane captain and I got her into the pilot's seat. From there, she's moved up to ship commander. The guy in the fifth spot is a task force commander. He's the general scientist you were looking for in me here."

"Really?"

"He designs and programs computers, he's an expert in cold materials technology, just because they're used to cool computers and make them even more powerful, he speaks 12 languages and understands two others, and he can pretty much tackle any problem put in front of him. We ran into some friends who gave us a map of the other half of the Milky Way, so we could more properly attack the enemy before the current one. At the time, we were six weeks from home. In that time, Patrick wrote a rendering program to take the information, which was printed in 450 different books, and had it all compiled by the time we got home. No real astrophysics experience and he mapped half a galaxy. Yeah, he's a pretty smart guy. Anyway, why hide my kids? Because I want them to become adults someday, even if I'm not around to see it."

"I've seen how you look at your partner…"

"You can call her Haley. Names aren't a bad thing. And Scott's my name."

"You did call me ma'am earlier."

"Trying to be polite. What would you like?"

"Jo is fine. I've heard the story about how you and Haley came to be a team. How close are you?"

"As close as we can be without being bigamists. And that's with my wife's permission because she's close to Haley as well."

"I was in the military before I did a tour as the town deputy, then in this timeline, I got the job as Global's security chief. In the Army here, that wouldn't be allowed."

"We, and by that I mean my half of the galaxy, has been at war for the last 36 years. People want to find happiness wherever they can while they're still alive to do it and the Admiralty has turned a blind eye to it because fraternization has basically become institutionalized. Everyone who does it knows that they're not going to get a break from their boss if they have a problem with their lover."

"You are her boss though."

"Yeah, but she wasn't always in the military. Special situation. It's a different time though, I can see how it looks unmilitary. Jo, how much trouble are we causing here?"

"Not as much as you're starting to think. At least we know how to detect time travel now, so if Mansfield's people come up with it, we know what we're against."

"Anything else you'd like to know?"

"I'm sure I'll come up with something. Right now, I'd like to try to figure out a way to sleep. You two gave me a lot to think about."

"When will the meeting take place?"

"Late morning probably. Your escorts will bring you out for it. You ready to go take a nap?"

"I have to fill Haley in on what happened. Then I can sleep. Did I do this?"

"What, cause the problems? No. Everything's been brewing for a while, since we were zapped back to 1947. Zane was right about one thing though."

"What's that?"

"Mansfield's investigation of the reconstructed bridge device and the theft of a weapon system is on hold as long as you're here. Your fuel starts arriving tomorrow."

"Tomorrow as in later today, you mean?"

"Yeah. The first trucks will be here in mid-afternoon."

"One of the reasons I started up the fueling system is to get the tanks cold so dumping a load in won't cause problems. Only one of us needs to be there for fueling ops though."

"So if you're still with us sorting through the issues, Haley can handle it?"

"Yes. She's amazing like that. And she knows my fighter's passwords, although I could shut it down remotely."

"How is she doing by the way? I heard about the breathing problems."

"She's back to normal. She walked down to the café and did well, so I'd say crisis averted."

"It's hard to believe the air on Earth is so bad."

"When we saw the facing of the planet we had to land on, that's why I picked the desert. Less pollution and less eyes watching us."

"Up here, a lot of our cars are electric and such, but I guess we're not insulated as much as we'd like."

"Oh, there are still fossil fuels in use on Earth in my day," McClellan explained. "Just not everywhere you turn. Electricity is generated by nuclear fusion, so that takes care of coal and oil-fired power plants. Most transportation is powered by hydrogen as well, whether it be ground or air. But every now and then, some crazy guy takes up a restored F-14 that burns jet fuel and puts some unauthorized sonic booms in the Applachian mountains."

"So that's why you weren't affected here so bad?"

"Probably. Earth does have pollution, but Haley's only been there for four years, and of that time, she's spent a lot of it off planet or on ship."

"How is the mask working?"

"We have a similar technology, but it wasn't used at the personal level. The last time I was in the hospital, they used an invisible curtain around my bed to keep out infections because I was really susceptible. I kinda wish I had been put in a locked down room instead."

"Why?"

"Because I had just spent two months in a jungle after being shot down, I had just woke up, and my wife was sitting just outside the bed and we couldn't touch each other. That was about the worst."

"Come on," Jo said. "You need to file your report and get some sleep."

The next day, McClellan and his partner had breakfast at Café Diem. Zane popped in at about 10 for his breakfast and saw the pair sitting at one of the tables with a street view.

"What's for breakfast?" Zane asked as he sat down. "I'm Zane by the way."

"I know," Haley said. "He told me all about you last night."

"Eggs Royale," Scott said. "One of my favorites."

"Never heard of it."

"Eggs Benedict with salmon and caviar."

"Serious?"

"Yeah. Vincent makes it pretty well too. Are you still feeling as charitable as you were last night?"

"I am," Zane said seriously. "Fargo wants to see me at noon, which means you're going out shortly."

"Oh, I forgot to tell you, our fuel starts coming today, so if I'm still out at their office in meetings," Scott said, "you'll have to handle the fueling op."

"Have you changed the codes to your fighter?"

"Nope."

"Got it."

"Excuse me, Commander," Deputy Andy said as he came into the small area. "Sheriff Carter called and asked me to take you to Global for a meeting. He said you were expecting it."

"Just in time," Scott said. "You want to finish?" he asked Haley as he pushed his remaining breakfast to her.

"Hell, yeah. You know I love this stuff."

"Don't shoot him," Scott said as he leaned across the table and kissed his partner. "Please."

"No promises. If he behaves, he'll live."

"Lead the way, Deputy," Scott said as he left Café Diem for his sit-down with the 1947 Five.

"You wouldn't shoot me, would you?" Zane asked.

"Nah. I've only injured people for refusing to take no for an answer. You ever hear the myth that you can't shove someone's nose up into their brain and kill 'em?"

"I have."

"I keep trying to disprove it. Haven't had any luck yet though."

"And this happens often?"

"14 people. 12 guys, two girls. I just don't like to play grab ass. I've only shot one person though, but that was a different scenario altogether."

"Who was that?"

"Scott's first wife. She was a spy and she was on our property with a gun pointed at him. I was heading out when I saw them at the firing range. He had his weapon in the small of his back, so he couldn't draw on her. One in the head, four in the chest. That bitch had it coming."

"What did she do to earn that kind of fate?"

"She tried to kill him a couple times. I'm not going to let that escape. I said I wouldn't and I didn't when the chance presented itself."

"Damn, you are serious about this."

"There are two people in the universe I'll die for or kill for outside of work. I think you know who they are."

"Him and his wife?"

"I love 'em both. I can't wait for this fuel to get her so I can get home. We have a couple weeks before we're back in the field, so I can actually wake up between 'em, if she's home that is. I miss that."

"Where else would she be?"

"On a hospital ship somewhere with the twins. They were very early."

"It's not just your job to keep your leader safe, is it?"

"Who would you rather have covering your ass, someone whose job it is to do it or someone who loves you? I screwed up once anyway, that's why he spent two months crashed not so long ago. That won't happen again."

"So you're second to his wife? Sorry, I'm just trying to figure this out."

"In public and to the chain of command, I'm just the kid who needs someone to watch her. In private, there's no separation. And Zoe's starting to get cranky with that, she doesn't like hiding, so she's working on a plan that makes it so we don't have to, unless Scott and I are on ship or working anyway."

"I guess he doesn't know about that yet."

"No. He didn't know about any of this until we tossed it in his lap either. He'll adjust, he's good at that."

"He does seem to adapt with the best of 'em. What are you going to do now?"

"Now that breakfast is over? There's something on TV called the Red Bull Air Races. Looks kinda fun to do, but it's being shown all day, so I'm going to watch until our fuel arrives. Mind if I give you a piece of advice?"

"Sure."

"You need to do laundry. If you pick up your Zoe with makeup and perfume on your shirt, she might just break things off."

"Huh?"

"Right shoulder, you have makeup on that shirt. And the perfume's not a bad brand either. I have a good sense of smell and I had to turn off my mask to eat."

"You have damn good vision to have seen that."

"I'm a pilot. It's my job."

"But you like flying too. You wouldn't be watching the air races if you didn't."

"I love flying. Scott's got a pair of F-14's from this era that his dad reconstructed with supercruise engines. First and only time I ever got sick in the air or in space was in the back seat of one of 'em. Doing crazy stuff in aircraft and in our fighters is the fun part of the job."

"I asked him, so I'll ask you too. What's the craziest thing you've ever done?"

"No doubt. I destroyed a Los Angeles cop's house with a hypersonic shock wave. We can adjust our shielding to direct the waves at a point, so I did. I went from Mach 12 to hover in a hundredth of a second over the remains of his house and didn't even break a blade of grass 10 meters away."

"What did he do to deserve that? And how'd it feel?"

"Screwed with Scott a long time…" Haley started laughing. "I guess a long time ago doesn't quite apply, does it? And how it felt… damn close to orgasmic. It was cool."

Vince came up behind Zane with a patented Café Diem go package. "One dozen white chocolate and raspberry mini-muffins for the visitor," he said. "Excellent idea to put them together in a muffin!"

"Thank you," Haley said. "It's my favorite snack when I can find someone to make them."

"Trust me, Muffin Monday will never be the same. Delicious. And your dinner is smoking out back now… they should be done by 7 o'clock or so. Oh, and can I name your new gastronomical delight?"

"Hadn't thought abut that," Haley said. "I thought they were just gonna be a lunchtime snack."

"How about Haley's Heavenly Muffin?

"Works for me," Haley said. "I've left my mark."

"They?" Zane asked.

"Slow-cooked ribs," Vince said. "I haven't had a reason to smoke anything in quite a while. Where they come from, they eat well."

"Talk to you later, Zane. You have a meeting to prepare for and I'm missing the early rounds of my races."

15 minutes later, Andy delivered Scott to GD's headquarters. After a quick peek around the rotunda, the meeting started in Fargo's office.

"Whose office is this?" Scott asked.

"Mine," Fargo said. "You like it?"

"It's… white. Like everything is white."

"I like a little brightness."

"My uniform and fighter color are personal choices." Scott tapped his glasses and darkened them a bit, which drew a chuckle from Allison. "There, I can see again."

"Actually," Allison said, "you'll need to take those off. Jo told us that you had a paper on these particles. Can you access it through your glasses?"

"Sure. How are you going to read it?"

"I got that," Fargo said. "I came up with a system that can read the projection from your lenses."

Scott adjusted the glasses to work on voice control and page forward on his command. Then he placed them in the rig Fargo came up with, and the document appeared on a temporary big screen.

"From my first read, they can be picked up magnetically. All the information is there with frequencies, you should be able to build a scanner that will at least tell you if someone else has screwed around with this."

"What are they attaching to?" Henry asked. "If they're clinging to something in the body and hanging around for over six months, it has to be something significant."

"Iron," Carter said. "He said they can be found magnetically."

"Even if they bond to the hemoglobin," Allison said, "that turns over every three and a half months or so. But there are other sources of iron in the body. That could be it."

"I reread this last night," Scott said. "Jo told me you went back a second time. It's not directly addressed, but you probably were reloaded. Each signature I detected from my fighter was relatively weak. I figure if I checked again, Sheriff, you wouldn't be so weak."

"Is there a way to hide from a scanner?" Carter asked.

"Yeah, for you. Stay home. You didn't show up at all. That might be a little impractical for the long run though."

"Jo said you turned on the refueling system in your fighter," Fargo said. "True?"

"It is. Part of the reason is that the tanks need prepped for a dump of fuel and for that, they need something in them, and there wasn't much left after the suborbital hop here."

"I explained that our other problems are on hold while he and Haley are here."

"I'll pretend it's not running. That gives you five days to figure something out. After that, we have to go because, even though we're here by natural means, our clock is ticking too and we have loved ones waiting for us to come home. And I'm sorry for letting Zane find that information. Like I explained to Jo, I didn't know it even existed until he found it."

"Someone was going to find out," Allison said. "At least we can control the situation."

"If we're done, can I have my glasses back? I really do need them to see better."

"Sure," Fargo said.

"Give him a pass to Section 5," Tess said as she barged into the room. "Henry and I have some questions and I have a better projection system to ask them in my old lab. And it's not going to be my old lab for long."

"Excuse me?" Fargo said.

"Mansfield called me this morning and wanted an update on the information I've come across through my interviews with your guests. He was so pleased, he offered me my old job back. I said yes. You'll have the paperwork to reinstate my clearances and such by lunch. Be sure you note my new pay grade too."

"Welcome back," Fargo said nervously.

"Thanks. That might be the first time you said anything nice to me without being under fear of your own death, Fargo. There's hope for you yet. And since we're all friends here, I guess it's time to have my say about the other two ton elephant in the room."

"Can I have that pass?" Scott asked. "I'll wait outside."

"Sit," Tess said. "I want a witness. I don't know what the hell happened to you, Carter, and I don't want to know anymore. You went from a great guy to some scared mouse to screwing my former best friend. And my former best friend couldn't wait to hit it. I'll make this simple – the medical director no longer has access to Section 5 unless there's been an accident that leaves a couple pints of blood on the floor. The Sheriff will be admitted by invitation only, my personal invitation, and we don't have many murders down there. Five's my sandbox now and we'll all play by Tess's rules."

"Dr. Fontana," Fargo said, "do I need to remind you who's director of this facility?"

"Check your email, Dougy. Mansfield and I had a long talk about a hell of a lot more than pay grades."

Fargo huffed, then turned around and started working on the computer on his second desk. He sighed and sunk into his seat.

"Mansfield confirmed everything she just said," Fargo practically whispered. "Section 5 is her domain now."

"Told ya."

"How the hell are you being paid as a level one on the executive pay scale?" Fargo screamed. "I'm only a level three."

"I asked. After Scott and his friend have left town, I'll be taking a week to get moved back into my house and to go to Portland for a new car. I need something red and faster than the Audi. And if you have any other white list projects down there that I don't know about, I'd better have a complete accounting of them by the close of business today, or if I find one, I'll take care of it with a block of C-4. Come on, I'll give you a pass when we get down there. I'm the boss after all."

Henry, Tess, and Scott left Fargo's office in a hurry. Tess was overjoyed in the elevator at her performance in showing up Fargo and everyone else. She did play it to perfection, since the newcomers brought information that was squarely in her wheelhouse of expertise. Once the three walked into Tess's lab, Scott laughed because he knew the topic of discussion.

Tess had set up a diagram of the Milky Way, known satellite galaxies, and measurements. Earth was clearly marked and the number "102,564" was clearly written in a box separating it from the galaxy.

"When we were on the hill," Henry said, "your partner said that your trip to the planet to destroy the comet was 102,564 light years."

"Were we right in assuming that is a one-way number and not a round trip figure?" Tess added.

"Yeah, you're right. One way."

"As you can see," Tess said, taking the role of interrogator, "there's nothing that far away from Earth. Unless you were in a satellite galaxy that's orbiting so damn close to the Milky Way, we haven't discovered it yet."

"It was a main body trip." McClellan stood up and walked in front of the Milky Way display.

"You knew my name," Henry said. "How?"

"I knew it because we had this conversation already. All your distances inside of 10,000 light years or so of Earth are correct. Everything outside the galaxy is generally correct. The rest of what you have about the galaxy is wrong. I'm going to tell you three facts and you two are going to spend the better part of a long time trying to figure out how to come to the correct conclusion. The Milky Way isn't 100,000 light years in diameter, it's 202,000. The galaxy is roughly 2,400 light years thick. And Earth isn't 25,000 light years from the center, it's 74,800 light years away. Your job now is to prove those numbers and write it up."

Henry grimaced a bit. "You know me because I did write it up, as you say."

"I've already done my part, according to the script. And you both do, I just caught myself before I identified Dr. Fontana."

"Henry," Tess said, "if this is right, and I'm not saying it isn't, it completely disproves the theory of a galactic habitable zone. There isn't a limit as to where life can occur within a galaxy."

"Sounds like a good theory to me," Scott said. "Need anything else?"

"No," Henry laughed. "That should keep us busy for the next ten years or so."

"Eight, ten, twelve, something like that. Needless to say, you probably shouldn't tell anyone about this for a while, until you get some foundations laid."

"Tess, I have another meeting upstairs. This time, Zane's involved. See you after lunch?"

"Henry, do you want to do this?"

"Do what?"

"Prove what we just learned."

"Absolutely."

"We'll need to work on it down here. Are you okay with that?"

"Sure. I'll take Scott back up and find some transportation for him to get back into town. Or I'll do it, it's not a huge trip."

"Thanks," Scott said.

"No, thank you," Tess said. "I wouldn't be back here if it wasn't for you coming along at the right time."

As soon as Scott and Henry boarded the elevator, Scott asked Henry to call Zane and tell him about Tess's new job and to tell her absolutely nothing else, otherwise she would probably have everyone sanctioned because of her anger for Jack and Allison.

"This is going to cause us problems after you're gone," Henry said. "If Tess doesn't calm down that is."

"Why?"

"Section 5's all high security military projects. That chief is traditionally second in command at Global. But if Mansfield is bumping her up, she might have more power than Fargo over other things, and knowledge is power. We're going to have to watch her."

"Who had her job?"

"No one. It hadn't been filled after she took off when things between her and Jack went sour. Five chief isn't something we can advertise and have CV's pouring out of the personnel department for. Fargo has made Allison a de facto assistant. She had experience – in our timeline, she had Fargo's job."

"And a better decorated office, I hope."

"We've tried to give him a break. He's young. And it's not him who did it, the other timeline's Fargo did, the one he replaced."

"He has a doctoral degree, same as the rest of us."

"Okay, how about he's unseasoned?"

"I'll buy that. You're right though, Dr. Fontana's going to be a pain in all your asses until she decides to… well, you know what, if my best friend started screwing my girlfriend after we broke up, I'd be pissed off too."

Henry nodded. "Carter's my best friend in town. If I got divorced and he was with my ex, I'd probably try to knock his head off. Maybe time will take the edge off."

"I wouldn't invite her to any parties with you guys in the near future either. Hey, do you have any idea when my fuel's going to arrive?"

"Jack said he has to go close the back road at 3, so it'll probably be at the site by 4 or so. Going somewhere?"

"I was just going to take a long lunch at the café if no one had any interviewing to do. Noon was Zane's time, but he's going in with you guys to talk about time travel."

"No partner?"

"Haley? Oh, not today. She's discovered TV and made plans to spend today watching some air race competition."

"She caught the flying bug pretty bad?"

"Worse than me, and I thought I was terminal. There have been times she's tried to get me to take missions so she could get off the ship for a while. I mean, I can fly when I want, but I'm not going out to bore holes in space for a six hour combat air patrol when nothing's going on."

"Will she go without you?"

"If things are calm. If there's a chance of seeing action, she waits until things become a little more clear. I've put her on other flying members of my command staff when the situation dictated I don't fly at all and she's done it, grudingly. Although she went out with my astrophysics chief in the back seat and I didn't have to get on her at all."

"You don't do that yourself?"

"Nah, I'm boss of a six and a half kilometer long city with 18,000 residents and a thousand fighters that can be armed up like mine. I have to let the science go most of the time. Believe me, I wish I was just the boss of a section… or even just a regular old pilot sometimes. She'll step in and put me in my place when it's needed though."

"Sounds like more than your guardian."

"Yeah, she is. Do you regret it?"

"Regret what?"

"The time shift."

"I didn't have anything to do with it. I guess at first, I did. Now though, now that I told Grace about it, it's not so bad. How bad did it feel to leave the science behind?"

"What, and turn into a killing machine? It wasn't quite as hard as it should be."

"Jo said she told you about our stowaway, right?"

"I won't let that happen."

"One of the things he said is that the future wasn't what he thought it would be. Agree?"

"Wholeheartedly. I mean, it's not great, but it's home. That's where my people are."

"Why are you thinking that way?"

"The 9/11 attacks happened in this timeline, didn't they?"

"You've studied your Earth history. Yeah, they did."

"Now add an organized military presence and throw in a four or five thousand year old military tactic, and you have what our current enemy did to Boston a couple months ago."

"Trojan horse?"

"Yeah. They stole a surplus passenger ship, loaded on a thousand or so troops, and landed in one of the busiest spaceports on the planet. Plus it's a unique one. Because of traffic concerns over the city, there are few private landing passes handed out. The spaceport is essentially a gigantic landing zone for all the city residents."

"Everyone's in one place. How bad was it?"

"17,000 dead. The aftershock was worse. 1,400 planets went on a full-on lockdown. Earth got military help, so we were flying over our own cities with orders to shoot anything taking off out of the skies. Security's tighter now, there are inspections before ships approach planets. Everything's a general mess and all at the cost of just a thousand shock troops. It only took one."

"Would you have followed those orders?"

"One thing I've learned since I made a friend in the military's commanding officer. Someone's gotta be the asshole, it might as well be me. Besides, that was personal for me."

"How's that?"

"I live in Maine. My wife's doctor's in Boston, and for that matter, so was my oncologist. Zoe was on the ground nine kilometers from the spaceport. Because she's a doctor, she got a free landing pass. Haley was flying me because I was going in for surgery. Yeah, I was scared."

Once the elevator stopped, Henry and Scott headed into the rotunda. Much to the guest's surprise, Henry left him alone for a couple minutes to tell Grace he was leaving the building in person. While Henry was gone, a redhead with really bright green eyes came up to Scott and started talking.

"You're the guy from out of town, aren't you?"

"Something like that," Scott said. "Hopefully, I'll be gone in a few days. I don't think we've met."

"We haven't, Commander. In about four minutes, all hell's gonna break loose right here. You can help or you can go home. Take your pick."

"I think my answer should be obvious. Why should I believe you?"

"I know you have a link to your ship. Go ahead and turn it on. Set it to autotranslate what I'm about to say."

"Already done," Scott said after he tapped his glasses a few times. The scientist said some things in a language Scott didn't recognize right away.

"How fast is your translation matrix?"

"About that fast," Scott said. His glasses flashed an answer he didn't expect to see. "Okay, you're for real. Now tell me the truth."

"I don't know the truth. And the only two ships I know of that can get to the truth are sitting out on a hilltop in Eureka."

"The countdown's on then," Scott said as his informant walked away. A couple minutes passed before Henry ran up from the elevator area.

"Ready to go?"

"I am," Scott said. "Lead the way."

Henry's phone rang just as the two left the rotunda for the security area. Scott could tell Tess was on the other end of the conversation, and after a minute, Henry said that the trip to town would have to wait. The pair made a hasty return to Lab 511.

"If my wife was here, she'd say we're meeting under suspicious circumstances," Scott said as he tried to deflect knowledge of the meeting's contents. "What's up?"

"E.T. just talked to us. I figure you already know about it," Tess said. "Right?"

"Yeah, I do." Scott pulled out his fighter control. "I don't know what it is though."

"That won't work down here," Henry said.

"The only thing that'll stop this is a couple feet of lead or a Faraday cage tuned to the right frequency."

Tess's diagram of the Milky Way, revised to show the new dimensions, had a red line pointing toward one of the edges nearly 100,000 light years from Earth's new position. "What's out there?"

"Your line comes very close to a planet on the edge of the galaxy that's a scanning base in my day. Because its skies aren't cluttered by stars, the base can watch intergalactic space more efficiently. Aside from that, I can't make any promises. Dr. Fontana, about 20 times a year, Alliance fighters get attacked by locals we didn't know about that are in what we call our territory. This galaxy is still very much unknown by all sides and shooting is usually the first response. There are a couple hundred billion stars in the place. Our group has 1,400 members in half the galaxy. Do the math."

"What does your handheld thing say?"

"My fighter recorded four FTL signals. One coming along the coordinate you've plotted there. Two others inbound from somewhere close, and one outbound from this facility."

"Excuse me?" Tess said. "Here?"

"You can do what you want after I'm gone. For now, leave it alone. You should worry about the one coming from somewhere not so close. That would be the one along the bright red line on the screen there."

"Is there any way to tell the range?" Henry asked. "Maybe that would help you figure out an answer."

"No, not without knowing more about the comm protocols they're using, and that will take a while to figure out. Our ships are working the problem, but don't expect an answer soon."

"We need an answer," Tess said. "I can keep this bottled up for a day or so."

"Excuse me?" Scott said. "A day?"

"Don't worry, your secret's safe here. If this happened in your day, how would you deal with it?"

"We'd have ships going out hunting. But it wouldn't be all that big of a deal."

"This isn't your time," Tess said seriously. "If you were me, what would you tell my superiors?"

"Do you have anyone out there within 200 meters of our ships?" Scott asked.

"Yes."

"If I were you, I'd make a call and tell them to be somewhere else, then I'd tell your guests to dial up their fuel systems for a launch."

"How long will it take?"

"To dial up the system? I can do it from here."

"No, how long to make your fuel?"

"I'll tell you in a second," Scott said. He poked around on his computer for a bit. "13 hours will be enough to get us to the planet whose status out there we know."

"That's your base?" Henry asked. "What's it like now?"

"It's what we generously call an iceball. There's enough trouble in the atmosphere to cause some severe storm fronts, but most of the water is on the surface as ice. Now, in this time, there's probably some running water at peak sun. That's a good thing."

"Why?" Tess asked.

"Because for our return course to work, we have to come back to Earth. That will mean we have to refuel if we leave here short of a full load. Otherwise, if we just went there and came back with very minimal interruptions, we could do it on one load. But actual water provides for a quicker refuel than just snow."

Henry thought for a few seconds. "If you can do that, and you weren't much further away when you blew up that comet, why was your fuel depleted when you arrived here?"

"Because the planet we saved and the one we took a night-long stop on on the way home let us land at the hotels and it's really impolite to turn on a refuel system in a populated area."

"Fine," Tess said. "I want to go with you."

"Tess," Henry said, "if there's a time issue…"

"It's a signal. Who on this planet knows more about signals than me? No, I'm in."

"One seat left on the flight of history, Dr. Deacon. You want to come along?"

"I don't do enclosed spaces well. There is someone else who should be in that chair though."

"Who?" Tess asked.

"Zane Donovan. He's the closest thing we have to a daredevil pilot. He could learn a lot from a couple days in your back seat."

Scott's chin immediately went to his chest. "Goddammit, it is him."

"Who's who?" Tess asked.

"How committed are the two of you to maintaining timeline integrity?" Scott asked. "You better think about your answer before you say it. Think hard."

"We have to do what we can," Henry said.

"Does that include potentially sentencing someone to death?"

"Excuse me?" Tess said. "We have to kill someone?"

"No, not directly. If Zane goes on this trip, you have to read him in to the secrets on that board. I already know you two present your findings and bring home awards and such. In your speech, you thank me indirectly, but you also have another unnamed associate, one who was taken before his time," Scott said. "Your words, not mine. And you said he was young."

"If we tell Zane about this project," Henry said, "he has to help us with it."

"It might happen anyway," Scott said. "I can't possibly tell. But someone young and associated with the two of you dies. It's not tomorrow, but it does happen."

"He can still go and not know," Tess said. "Can't he?"

"Question one," Scott said as he paced. "How fast are we going? Question two. How far away are we going? He'll figure out x times y equals something that currently isn't possible under the known facts of the Milky Way pretty fast."

"When does it happen?" Tess asked.

"No," Henry said with emphasis. "Don't say it. Tess, if it's him, we can't stop it. If Zane lives one more day than he's supposed to, the effects could be devastating."

"We have another problem," Scott said. "Six witnesses to what we're about to do. Two drive trails flaming across the western U.S. might attract their attention."

"Who's that?" Tess asked.

"ISS," Henry said. "The astronauts on the space station."

"We have to time our launch to avoid them. I can take a clearance course and keep Earth between us and them for as long as possible and hopefully by the time they come around, they won't see us. Radar's not a problem, but eyeballs are."

"Tell Zane," Henry said. "We decided to learn all we could. Give him the chance."

"What do we need to wear?" Tess asked.

"If you plan on getting out and stretching your legs and assuming we stop where I think we're going to, pack a snow suit because it will be cold. Otherwise, whatever you're comfy wearing. Our flight suits have sensors and other things in them, but it's not necessary for a passenger."

"G-suit?" Henry asked.

"Nope, the fighter generates a counter field to acceleration. Unless I dial it back to have some fun, she won't know she's moving unless she looks out the window."

"If that fails?" Tess said nervously.

"You won't know it. You'll be pancaked and so will I. I've only been on one ship that's had a problem with it, and that's because we reloaded and changed the mass. Moderate injuries to two people, minor to most everyone else because the ship caught the problem, just not quite in time."

"I'll have the area cleared in half an hour," Tess said.

"Countdown started then. The refueling system will start on both ships at maximum strength in 30 minutes. With fuel factored in with the space station's orbit, we'll be skids up at 0143 hours tonight. That puts our ETA at the northern galactic edge to 1924 hours local time tomorrow evening. If we don't spot whatever it is, we're not going any further because my archaeoastronomy knowledge base doesn't cover enemy territory, and that's what, in my day anyway, isn't too far on the other side of that planet."

"We'll be there in 18 hours?"

"Probably a shade less, depending on conditions."

"How far is that planet?" Tess asked.

"94,100 light years. You'll be travelling at 6,000 an hour. That's faster than anything I can think of that might be out there lurking and it's just under 75 percent of what the Wasp Senior engines in our fighters can go."

Henry chuckled. "Wasp Senior? Really?"

"I'll give you one more. They were developed on the research ship Electra. Not my call, but it's one I like anyway."

"Explain," Tess said. "What's the guys' joke here?"

"Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra was refitted with Wasp Senior engines before her second around-the-world attempt in 1937," Henry said. "Tip of the hat to those who came before, I'd say."

"Before Achernar became the assumed flagship of the fleet, we had five ships that were regarded as the best that the Alliance had to offer. Care to guess at those names?"

"Five ships," Henry said. "Are they all still around?"

"No. Only three, I think anyway."

"The U.S. shuttles."

"Four of ours are still around. Discovery sorta had to go away. Don't ask. Oh, by the way, better tell Zane to wear a G-suit and bring puke bags. Either back seat he's in, he's not gonna fare well."

"Don't hurt him," Tess said.

"Hurt? Nah, I wouldn't hurt him. He won't complain. I promise. No one in my back seat has ever died because of my flying. Really."

"Go to town and tell your partner. We'll head out to the site from town at 1 am. Good enough?"

"Hell, I'm ready to go now," Scott said.

"You want to tell Zane?" Henry asked.

"Me?" Scott said. "Nah, he's already hounded me for a ride anyway. He'll scream like a kid when he finds out about this."

"Come on," Henry said. "Let's see if we can leave the building this time."

"If you see Zane, tell him. I'll go bully Fargo into letting this happen. What kind of prep time do you need to get ready?"

"Half an hour to shower and suit up. I'll probably sleep on the way there."

"Seriously?" Tess said. "Sleep?"

"You weren't here when we arrived, were you? Someone said you were in Australia, right?"

"I was. Good ears."

"Did you sleep on the plane from there to here?"

"That's just a flight across an ocean though."

"Dr. Fontana, this is what we do. It's what I was doing when I came to this time. Really, it's not a big deal to me and aside from the anticipation of where you're going, the trip isn't the payoff by any means. A big deal to me was being in the LMC with the Tarantula Nebula out one window and the Milky Way out the other side. You give me that, I'll wake up every time."

"You've been there?"

"I've been to a number of other galaxies. We can't go too far out of field in a fighter, but our capital ships have quite the range. Once we get there, my ass is outside flying as soon as I can justify."

Henry took Scott back to town. Zane got the word that his meeting was cancelled and then found out he was leaving town for a few days. He was overjoyed at the prospect, but managed to leave the town's guests alone to prepare.

"Give me your fighter link," Scott said to his partner, who was curled up on the couch in the apartment watching her races.

"Something you can't go out for?" Haley said when she tossed her device across the room.

"We're going out there at 0100 tonight. Road trip. I've already set the refuelers to go to max when they clear the area of people."

"Where to?"

"Mostling system. Something on that path is talking and that's as far as I feel comfortable going without running across the old enemy lines. And we'll have backseaters."

"Oh, come on…"

"Dr. Fontana and Zane. Give him a break. He could use it, he just doesn't know it."

"What do you know?"

"I knew Deacon and Fontana from an award presentation. In 12 years, they win the Nobel Prize for Physics for discovering the actual size of the galaxy. They thanked a young, dead colleague. I'm pretty sure that's Donovan. They have bigger problems than that though."

Haley stopped the TV and sat down at the dining area table with her boss. "Any bigger problems I should know about?"

"They detected a signal out there on that arc. Only someone at their office told me about it first. And she spoke Arcturian circa this time."

"Seriously?"

"I knew they've been to Earth. I didn't know they were here walking around now. You ever met one?"

"I think in training. They look like us."

"Exactly. With a little DNA manipulation, they'll fool a test of this planet's technology. I wish I hadn't mentioned them when we first got here. I checked the birds' scanners and FTL comm checks. Four signals. One from out there somewhere, three others in a back and forth to Arcturus."

"Home base telling their operative about the signal, the operative calling home, and home base confirming orders?"

"That's what I think. We can't record the whole spectrum, so I didn't catch the contents of any of it. They caught some of the out there one and it's nothing I've seen before. The birds are running it but I'm not real hopeful we'll get an answer. Signal intercepts never were my specialty though. Once I'm done course plotting, if you want to try some of that voodoo Patrick taught you with the links, you're welcome to it."

"Milk run to the edge of the galaxy in 12 hours. Check," Haley said. "Fun, fun. Makes me wish Patrick was here with us. His bird's computers are so much better than ours and he gets into it."

"We have weapons. He has sensors. I wish he was here instead of us anyway. We'd be home now and not worried about this."

"Do you want to think about arming up? We know where to find more antimatter weaponry, even in this time."

"One's enough. If we have to do that later, we can."

"Calm down," Haley said as she kissed Scott on the cheek.

"This is getting more and more complicated by the minute and I don't like complications, not like this."

"You don't think a signal from the great beyond is a coincidence, do you?"

"No. I'm not worried about the Arcturians screwing around here. I'm worried about something having seen us and deciding to get involved."

"You can't let that happen. I know that. Best thing we can do is try to make it right. Are you setting a no-go time?"

"Nah, pick your poison though. Who do you want to torture?"

"I'll take him. You take her. What are you working on?"

"Our course off planet, then probably to a point due north or south of the Sun, then it's off to scan for a signal. We should be okay looking for it at 6k."

On the way to the landing site, Carter took Zane, and because of an excess of cars, they wound up together with no one around. When the guests closed down their moisture-sucking refueling system, the convoy received the go-ahead to drive up to the ships. Before leaving the car, Zane pulled an envelope out of his flight suit, which was the same one he used while flying the sky cruiser.

"Carter, do me a favor, will you?"

"If I can, sure."

"Give this to Zoe when she gets here later today. You should thank me actually."

"Why's that?"

"It's a note explaining that I'm out of town and I can't be called. This is supposed to take three days, but who knows, we could be out there a couple weeks or more."

"The boss said to not expect you home on time."

"Zoe knows you don't like me. I let her know I'm not being sent to some secret prison in Siberia."

"What's your cover story?"

"What are the people in town saying about them?"

"The people who know the truth aren't saying anything. Jo's done a pretty good job of keeping it secret. I think the only person who probably shouldn't know that does is Vincent, but when has he ever been left out of anything?"

"I told her that the Army asked for Tess and me to go somewhere to help on a project. Best I could come up with that isn't an outright lie. Did you have to hide things before you came here?"

Carter nodded as he took the envelope. "More than I wanted to. I'll make sure she gets it."

"Does this mean you approve?"

"It means I don't want you breaking my daughter's heart. That's what it means. You can better accomplish that goal by emphasizing that this secret trip is a one-time thing and that you'll be more open in the future about where you go and why you're going there. Don't talk so much about your work either."

"Why not?"

"Because you have to keep secrets there too, don't you? And the less you talk about work, the less the topic comes up, and the less chance you have of having to reveal a secret. Be careful, I don't want my daughter wondering if you're dead or not, and I doubt we'll get any notification if something does happen to you."

"Thanks, Carter."

After a briefing of a few safety points on the ground, the two ships left Eureka's EM field and headed for a point in space well above the Sun's northern pole.

"Look out and down," Scott said. "If all goes well, we'll be back in three days or so."

"Zane," Tess said, "you ever think we'd be here?"

"Oh, hell no. Not in our lifetimes anyway and definitely not above the solar system like this. How far are we from the Sun, guys?"

"About 3 billion kilometers," Haley said. "When our translight drives kick out, you'll be that far and 94,000 light years away. Ready for the checklist, Commander."

"Run it," Scott said. "Let's see how good you are at it."

"Set translight drive to slave mode."

"Check."

"Course 242 by plus 10, distance 94,000 light years, speed 6,000, drive time 15 hours 40 minutes. Program now."

"Already set."

"Set scan mode for FTL comm signal Alpha 391."

"Programmed and locked for translight emergency disconnect on detection."

"Say your fuel state, consumables state, and ordnance."

"59,950 kilograms of fuel. 5,650 kilograms of oxygen. All ordnance safety features are on."

"That's it. Any words for the class, Zane?"

"All aboard."

"Next stop is the northern galactic edge," Haley said. "Translight in 3… 2… 1… go."

The stars and anything visible outside the cockpits of the two ships immediately disappeared. Tess gasped at the sudden darkening.

"Just us now," Scott said. "We're on the intercom. You okay?"

"Why'd everything disappear?"

"Photons can't catch us. But if we run into any real matter, that'll make for a messy day."

"So you fly from point to point in an envelope of total black?"

"I said there wasn't much to get excited about. Look at the canopy panel to your right. That diagram of the galaxy will show you our progress if you want to keep track of it."

"What's the place where we're going like?"

"It's a blue dwarf star, a single one. The planet… ever been to Antarctica?"

"You know, I actually have."

"Really?"

"It was my final continent. Been to all seven now, lived on four of them."

"Imagine being stuck at the South Pole without a research facility with nothing but snow, ice, and Earth's curvature to keep you company. In my day, the saying at the base is that the only thing you do outside there is try to get inside."

"So you've seen this planet before?"

"Three times. I wasn't stationed there, but some missions I was on kicked off from there. The base is colder than the equator because it's in the high northern hemisphere. The way the planet sits, the north half faces out into the intergalactic void."

"A sky with no stars. That's weird."

"You think it sounds weird now, wait 'til you actually see it. It's that odd. Mind if I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What all did you pack? You basically have a suitcase stuffed in around you and in the cargo section."

"My cold weather stuff, most of it's Global issue and really thin, something for warm in case we stop early, my sunglasses for the ice planet, and snacks. Mainly snacks though. You don't mind, do ya?"

"Only thing I mind is that you can't share with the rest of the class. The bottom drawer of the seat is refrigerated if you need to put something in there… provided there's room, of course."

Tess leaned forward and pulled open the foot-deep container below her. "Chocolate, white chocolate, and other sweet stuff I will probably try. You shouldn't have this, you're diabetic."

"Ah, I'm a repaired diabetic. I'm as normal as the next person as far as that's concerned. I ran out of food when I crashed before, so now there's enough tucked away in the nooks and crannies of this bird for one person to survive for six months."

"Allison told me about that."

"It was probably the worst experience I've had as a pilot. You and her went around yesterday in Fargo's office though."

"Now who's asking all the questions."

"I'm curious, what can I say?"

"She and I were in grad school together. Long story short, one of Eureka's space projects from 20 years ago came home and didn't announce itself properly, so we thought something else was coming. She called me because I work with signals. So I came to Eureka. Carter and I got off to a rocky start, but I fell for the guy. Then he comes home one day and he goes from loving me to stuttering through talking to me to outright dumping me."

"That's not fun. Why are you coming back then? I mean, if those two are going to be in your life, why do it?"

"Probably the same reason you're in the military."

"Ah," Scott said. "Thrill and excitement. And free parking everywhere."

"I am heading for another planet in another solar system right now. I'll get over them someday."

"You staked out your territory pretty hard in the office."

"If you had seen the real Fargo, not the nice one that shows up for guests, you'd understand. It's nothing but a big pissing contest with him."

"You've got the upper hand with his boss though, don't you?"

"For now. The Army is fickle. They might decide to like someone else and drop me like a bad habit. Still, look what I get to do while I'm on the inside."

"I get it. If I wasn't in the military, I wouldn't have gone to 14… or is it 15… anyway, more than a couple other galaxies. And I damn sure wouldn't have seen one percent of the stuff I've had an opportunity to watch."

"What do you think those two are talking about?"

"Haley and Zane, I don't know. Zane's giving it a go, I'll say that much for him. He doesn't stand a chance, but it's good to see he's not giving up."

"He's pretty hooked on Jack's daughter now."

"Good for him."

"What happens if we find something out here and, as you said, they decide to shoot first?"

"Then we defend ourselves to the best of our ability. It's no utopia out here and the people are damn sure not as friendly as they are on Earth, in either of our times."

"Kill or be killed kinda thing?"

"Yeah, something like that. My half of the galaxy's been at war with someone for my entire life. It's what I know. Hell, my first wife was one of them and she tried to kill me a few times."

"Huh?"

"You heard right."

"Why'd you get with her?"

"She was gorgeous and knew what buttons to press. Why else does a guy succumb?"

"Let's see her," Tess said. "You gotta still have a picture in here somewhere." Scott grumbled for a second, then put the first wife's service picture up on Tess's monitor. "Oooh."

"Huh?"

"I see part of the problem. You go for the waifs. You like those little cuties who are stubborn enough to handle you. Lots of fire, small package."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. That does describe most of my ex's."

"And look who else it describes. Your partner over there. Coincidence or not?"

"You know better than that already."

"I do, I just wanted to get you to admit it. Thanks."

"Glad to help."

"How cold is this place we're likely to be landing?"

"At the equator or at wherever it's peak sun now, it could possibly be as high as zero. Unfortunately, that increases the odds of storms and such, so we'll be playing it by ear. We won't be landing at the base's latitude though, under any circumstances."

"Why not? Don't want to leave footprints to be found?"

"Last time I was there, at the local equivalent of 1000 hours, it was 70 below zero with a projection of 120 below by sunset because of a storm coming in. Unless you want to sit in that seat for three days straight, we're not going there."

"Doesn't that low of a temperature cause carbon dioxide problems?"

"It can, but the levels are so low, it's barely noticeable even on instruments. The biggest problem we have is with our fighters. We can't launch in temperatures under 100 below, even though we have cryogenic fuel and such. Our atmospheric control systems can't handle the temperatures."

"Hydraulic freeze?"

"Yeah, we can't use our atmospheric control surfaces. I was supposed to spend a day there resting up for a mission when the base meteorologist came in and told me if I wanted to go, I had to do it in the next four hours, so I took a shower and left. That was a shit mission all the way around for the most part. Remember I told you we get attacked out of the blue sometimes?"

"I do."

"On the way home, after debriefing, that was one of 'em. The fighter detected nuclear weapons fire about 200 light years away, and in the rear, I'm obliged to check it out, so I did. The guys who did it were still in the area and came out gunning."

"What did you do?"

"Shot 'em down, completed my inspection, and headed for home. That's all I could do."

"You couldn't help the people who were shot up?"

"That's one protocol I do follow. I picked up plenty of survivors, but who do I land and help? It'd be a mob scene and it wouldn't get anything constructive done. I reported it to the Admiralty and left it at that."

"I don't think I could have left."

"It wasn't easy. Do you understand that this all seems easy, but it's not?"

"You mean the whole kill or be killed thing?"

"Yeah, that."

"It's a different mentality. Even the craziest maniacs in charge of countries on Earth want to talk and they try to use talk to get what they want with threats first. Do you just go where you want to in this thing?"

"Do I fly myself? Yeah, I do. But that's a privilege not everyone has. For civilians to get their interstellar flight license takes quite a bit of work and study. Otherwise, they wind up flying commercially, which isn't a bad way to go."

"That's the business to be in… if there's money in your day."

Scott laughed. "For 11 generations, the McClellan family has moved you from one point to another safely and securely with the lowest accident record in the industry. Even if I wasn't in the military, I'd still be going where I want to go. My family owns one of those commercial carriers."

"Owns it?"

"Yep. All the others are publicly held companies. Not ours."

"So you must have more money than God."

"Pretty much."

"Then why do crazy stuff like be in the military?"

"You ever hear the real stories of war from someone, not the glossed over easy stuff?"

"I thought so."

"Nah, no one who's seen action wants to talk about the gritty, crazy parts. I give hints sometimes. Anyway, the real story, I'm not gonna tell. Why am I still in? Because I'm doing some good. And I'm in too deep already to leave. You get to a point where you've seen so much and done so much that they get jumpy when you retire or move on. I crossed that line about four years ago. Are you good on using the interfaces to look stuff up?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to touch a nerve."

"Don't worry about it. I'm not."

"I'm good."

"Enjoy yourself. I'm going to sleep for a while. I didn't take a nap today."

"How do I wake you up if I need to or if some red flashing light goes off?"

"Just say my name. I'll hear it." Scott paused for a few seconds. "The Alliance isn't exactly a rock-solid group of friendly planets. Three relatively close to Earth played host to hidden enemy fighter bases, some in major population centers. The Fleet Admiral needed someone to take them out, so she used the sharp end of the spear, a hot-headed Star Captain that she convinced she had his best interests at heart and they could scratch each other's back. They were statement shots, overkill designed to bring the rest of the Alliance into line so they'd realize sleeping with the enemy would bring a sharp blade across the throat in the middle of the night. Good night, Dr. Fontana."

Tess pressed a button on the communications control and called to the other ship. "Zane, you here?"

"Yo. How cool is this?"

"Extremely. Hey, does she think this is not a big deal?"

"Pretty much. I understand now though, it's really not."

"What's it take to excite them?"

"I'm not sure."

"I'm not sure I want to know," Tess said. "If this doesn't do it, what's the next level?"

"You got a point there. Who knew the galaxy was twice as big as we thought it was."

"They did apparently."

"Why did they tell us just that though?"

Tess paused for a second. "I don't know. Maybe it's harmless enough that it won't make a difference."

"Yeah, maybe," Zane said. "I'll talk to you in a bit."

Nine hours passed with relatively little conversation between the two ships. The talk that woke Scott up would disturb everyone.

"Hey, you awake?" Haley asked on the comm channel that included all four people.

"Yeah, I've been up for an hour."

"I just got a bingo destination alert."

"What the hell? What was your takeoff fuel weight?"

"60,259 kilograms. More than enough to make this run, land, and go back to Earth without adding a drop to the tank. The translight drive has been adjusting the reactor on its own since we're in auto mode."

"Run through the checklist," the senior pilot said. "Time to learn something."

"Already did it. My drive's failing. The diagnostic says it's repairable though."

"In the field? Please tell me it's the power input module and not the drive output module."

"No such luck. It's the output module."

"What does that mean?" Tess asked. "Are we in trouble?"

"If we didn't carry spare parts, we'd be fucked right now. I can fix it, but it's gonna take a couple days. Find us a temperate place to land, Haley, I'm not doing this in ski country or a desert."

"Kitakyushu is about 4,000 light years away from us. The East Asian Colonization Corporation doesn't get there for another 1,200 years. The history of the colony says it was a plant-life only planet when they arrived."

"Translight drive slave mode on," Scott said. "Take me, I'm yours."

"Yeah, I know you are," Haley said with a mocking evil laugh. "Course change complete, updating the countdown clock now."

Scott looked up at the front cockpit window which had the same tracking information as Tess's side panel. A timer with over eight hours disappeared, and one with 38 minutes appeared and immediately started running down.'

"Let's make sure we land by that fresh water sea. That'll make refueling go faster and it might mean we don't have to stop at the end of the road," Scott said. "Note to the passengers, this planet's gravity is about 25 percent higher than Earth. The air, especially since we're going to be at what amounts to sea level, is going to be heavier than you're used to. If you start having any breathing problems, we'll need to put you back in a fighter and adjust the gravity in the rear cockpit to Earth standard. No lying either, you could wind up on the ground away from either of us and we won't know you're having a problem."

"Got it," Tess said. "What are the symptoms?"

"You'll just get tired more easily all the way around. When you start getting tired, take a break and sit down."

"I'm in good shape," Zane said. "Been doing my cardio."

"Oh, no," Scott said in his intercom. "That's a challenge."

"Huh?" Tess said. She didn't know what was coming.

"Just wait."

"My sublights aren't affected by this. Boss, you think I could spend half an hour in the atmosphere?" Haley asked.

"Sure, why not?"

"Zane," Haley asked, "you said you were in good shape, right?"

"Yeah."

"We'll see about that. We're going to do a little flying before we land."

"Yes! Finally, some fun!"

"You won't think so in a little bit," Scott said.

"This might be a longer stop than you think," Haley said. "I just backdated Kitakyushu's day. The western edge of that sea, if it's there now, is about three hours from the dusk-side terminator. We'll have enough time to land and set up camp unless you plan on working in the dark. Cancel aerobatics school?"

"Nah, I think Dr. Fontana and I can get things started. You kids have fun."

"Hey," Tess said, "what's she going to do to him?"

"Haley got uppity once and decided she could handle anything. I put her in the back of an F-14 my father had restored and took her up for an hour. When we got back to the ground, she had puked and let go on the runway. Negative g-forces and heat in the back cockpit is a guaranteed formula to making someone puke down to their stomach lining. He'll be fine, he'll just regret making the challenge."

"I've seen him fly the sky cruiser around Eureka. He's got a good stomach for this kind of thing."

"We'll see."

"Which one of you is better?"

"My ego says it's me. The truth, though, that's a different story. Just because she can't beat me in a fight doesn't mean she's not better than me. I just know what she's going to do. Against a similar enemy, it's her."

"How? She didn't grow up in society to learn that kind of thing."

"No, but when she did get involved in society, she was exposed to four damn good pilots and someone whose genius would fit right into your town. She learned and learned fast. It's just something that happens too. Probably one in a million pilots who go through the training program are purely natural. She's that one."

"You're not?"

"I am, but not like her. I'm crafty, I like to be cute and do stuff from long range with missiles or overdo it with bigger bombs than I need to. I guess I married astrophysics with combat flying because I can take my opponent into an atmosphere they're not familiar with and take them out. Haley can do everything. She likes knifefighting."

"What? Playing with blades?"

"Nah, it's the term we use for what you'd call dogfighting. Up close fighter combat. I can't stand it, I'm not good at it, and part of doing this is playing on my ground and not someone else's. She's just as comfortable at three light seconds as she is from 30 meters. By the time I was as far into her career as she is, I had been forced to land four times by battle damage and been dinged a bunch of times. So far, her plane captain's only had to do routine maintenance to that bird."

"How bad is the gravity on this planet?"

"Have you ever jogged with weights on your feet?"

"Once."

"Kinda like that. It's really not all that bad. You'll have a radio, so if anything happens and you're out of sight, we'll be able to find you."

"Do you have a camera back here on me?"

"I can look at it if you want me to. I try not to spy though. Why?"

"I brought marshmallows."

"I humbly apologize for making fun of your packing now. I'll do more if you tell me you packed some crackers and chocolate."

"Sadly, I did not."

"Just marshmallows work. I'll bring the chocolate. We'll have a fire."

Tess got totally quiet for about a minute. The silence made Scott flip on one of the rear cockpit cameras. Tess had her head down, her glasses in one hand, and her other hand over her eyes.

"Wow, um, something I said? I know I'm an ass, but I've never made anyone distraught over snacks."

"Nah, not you," Tess said. "Well, the words might have come from you, but you didn't say them."

"You want to explain that craziness to me?"

"You just reminded me of when I came onto Jack for the first time. He was staking out a weird construction thing going on outside of town. I sneaked up with a tofu pizza and snacks and you sort of sounded like him when you conceded plain marshmallows are good."

"I was there when you staked out your territory. You're pissed at both of them, hard enough that if you were me, there might have been bloodshed in that room. Why are you going back there?"

"I'm going to be 94,000 light years from Earth when this trip ends. Maybe that's worth getting pummeled every time I see those two together."

"Dr. Fontana…"

"Tess. Please, for God's sake, names, not titles."

"You're here. In my time, people usually say BTDT. Been there, done that. You've made the trip. I'm not returning to this time unless something dramatically bad happens. Do you want to stay around there hoping someone else does so you can go somewhere else? You've got the secret to a career legacy now. Is there a law that says you have to be in Eureka to pursue it? I spent a little time on your internet… you can communicate instantly from anywhere on the planet. And if it matters, I'll tell you that the information I saw that said you're a part of that discovery doesn't say a damn word about a small, weird town in Oregon."

"Why tell us?"

"Because before I even came here, I knew your names. I read your paper and I saw your presentation when I was in college. Tess, it's Astrophysics History 101, and I really mean that. Hell, I'll go ahead and name the damn thing for you. Three weeks after an 11 year old kid stepped foot onto a university campus, he learned the Deacon-Fontana Galactic Redefinition Theory. Like you said back in your office, your part goes immediately to destroying the concept of a galactic habitable zone. Dr. Deacon covers the actual modeling."

"You went to college at 11?"

"Double bachelors by 14, second level by 15 and a half, and I had my doctorate, complete with dissertation research by 17 years and 8 months. I graduated three days after Christmas and started military flight school on January 2nd."

"What the heck are your degrees in?"

"Bachelors are astronomy and stellar chemistry, second level's in straight physics, and my doctorate is astrophysics."

"You guys have a degree in stellar chemistry?"

"It's sort of a misnomer really. It's more like practical nuclear physics, only with a concentration on fusion instead of fission. Stellar chemists work on all sorts of projects from spacecraft design to planet-wide power generation. If you're putting two atoms together, there'll be one on staff somewhere."

"That seems odd for you. Why that particular field?"

"Because I already knew what I wanted to research for my dissertation. Big booms."

"Supernova. You planned everything out pretty well."

"All except this whole military thing. But it's working out pretty well for me. I get respect, power, all the things guys crave, right? You ever hear of a pair-instability supernova?"

"It's only the biggest thing in the universe. Yes!"

"I saw one. That was the most terrifying thing I've ever been witness to."

"Here?"

"No, thank God. That's the last thing I want to happen to the Milky Way. Although you are going to get a chance, I think, to see a blue hypergiant in the sky. It's the pole star of this planet."

"How far away is it?"

"Several thousand light years. Someday, I hope I can get back to the site of the one I saw to see the aftermath and the carnage."

"Can't you just jump in a ship and go? I mean, we're going pretty fast here."

"Nah, this was a month and a half away."

Tess started running the numbers to figure out the distance. "Six and a half million light years? Where's that?"

"Wrong speed. Add a factor of 10 to your computation and you'll still come up short. It's between 70 and 80 million light years away."

"You were going 70,000 light years an hour?"

"A little more than that, but yeah. It's a little counterintuitive that our fighters go way, way slower than their carriers, but that's the way it is."

"Mind if I ask you something completely off this topic?"

"Go for it."

"How long did you talk to Allison in the exam room?"

"A good couple hours."

"Any other talk?"

"Not really. I don't have much to offer the medical director other than my body's case study in surgery."

"What did you think of her?"

"She's a good doctor. I've had some shitty ones in my time."

"No, I mean personally."

"Ah, I see where you're going. Are you ready for the truth?"

"I'm feeling a little vulnerable here."

"I didn't say it would be bad. Well, I'm gonna say some bad things, but they might not be about you."

Tess chuckled a bit. "Okay, lay it on me."

"She's not nearly as good looking as she thinks she is and she's got the personality of an ice queen bitch back home… who coincidentally shares the same first name with her. Tess, let him go. I caught a couple glances between them in Fargo's office. She's got her hooks into him good."

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of."

"Tell me you're not staying in town waiting on him."

"I just need some time."

"Don't we all. You want the scorecard from a neutral observer?"

"Sure."

"You're better looking than Dr. Blake. By a long, long way. And unless she's got a mental disorder that results in multiple personalities, she doesn't come close to you in the personality department either. I think you have her beat hands down. You just need to find someone else who appreciates you for who you are and who won't try to change you. That would be a shame."

"Are you coming on to me?"

"Oh, hell, no. Last thing I need are complications from more women in my life. Just telling you the truth as I see it."

"You mean that, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do. I like women who stick up for themselves and aren't afraid of being themselves. Dr. Blake comes off like a chamaeleon to me. Remember when you barged into the exam room to talk about Haley's breathing?"

"I was a little mad, sorry about that."

"Don't be sorry. What would Dr. Blake have done?"

"She'd have knocked on the door, called me out in the hallway to talk about it, then she would have approached you with the utmost in caution."

"Which approach do you think I respect more?"

"I'm thinking mine."

"You think correctly."

"Life's too short for that kind of bullshit. Get it over and done with and move ahead."

"A lot of people in my time call that bitchiness. So be it. You think anything gets in Haley's way when she wants something?"

"She doesn't seem like the type to take crap from anyone."

"You think I'm gonna try any crap with her? I've seen how she can get, and I'd get some grace, but it's still not worth screwing up over. Plus, it's part of the job… her job is to keep my ass out of trouble and every now and then, that means getting in my face. We were on an ice planet similar to where we'll be terminating this little journey eventually looking for crashed technology on the surface from a race we're trying to track down. I flew some recon and found a hole in the surface, so I told her and my astrophysics chief I was going to land and take a look. Haley said no, and when I informed her she only had her flight suit on, she told me they both had on a cockpit-capable EVA suit, so they landed with me."

"Bet you rolled your eyes big time when you heard that."

"More than you know. When we got to the surface, I found the hole was only 50 meters deep. I was ready to pull out the ropes and go down and take a look. Our suits recorded a cyanide alert when we sublimated some of the snow."

"Might mean a comet had hit there, a small one, and everything iced over."

"Her exact words, and she would have said it if we were in front of a million other officers were 'are you out of your fucking mind? Go back to your fighter, we're going back to the ship. Now. March.' Turned out she did say it because her radio was set on the frequency the search parties were using to communicate back to Achernar. My X.O. got on the channel and told me I wasn't about to take an hour-long dive into a hole and if I wanted to challenge her on it, I could take it all the way to the Fleet Admiral if I wanted to, her opinion would win."

"Were they right?"

"Yeah, of course they were. See what I mean?"

"I'm not in the military. I can't exactly get away with that."

"Tess, you already did it."

"How's that?"

"What you said in the director's office. You've already staked out your position. Don't back down."

"I guess people don't change all that much in 1,600 years, do they?"

"Nope. Still as backbiting and nasty as they are here. Maybe even worse. I haven't been around here long enough to tell."

40 minutes later, the two fighters showed up at the outskirts of the star system they planned to use as a temporary refuge. At sublight speeds, the ships took over an hour to get from their stopping point to the planet and establish orbit. Once they did, a few notable differences popped out to everyone.

"I'm not finding that fresh water lake on this side of the planet," Haley said. "Nothing's matching it. Everything I can see from here's salt water."

"It might be on the night side," Scott said. "Sometimes guessing a day length from 1,600 years in the future's not an exact science. Let's head around to the back side and see what comes up."

"Hey," Tess said, "do you have orientation thrusters on this thing?"

"Yeah, what do you want me to do?"

"Angle so that the bottom of the ship is toward the sun and open up my canopy. I've got a real bad feeling about something."

"Fair enough," Scott said. He banked the fighter and shielded the top part from the star, which let the two safely open their cockpits to outside light."

"Are you sure this is the planet?" Tess asked. "Positively sure."

"Haley, run the star's spectrum against what we have and sort it through…"

"Have it sort through program AP299 to backdate the spectrum we have on record to current times. I got it. Results in 15 seconds."

"Tess, what's bugging you?"

"You said this planet's pole star is a blue hypergiant, right?"

"Yeah."

"That's about the only star I can see. And it's not the pole star."

"Huh?"

"It's directly over top of us the way we're laying. It's a good 50 degrees out of place."

"Scott," Haley said, "it's confirmed. This star is Kitakyushu's. The spectrum aging is dead on the money."

"I can't believe I'm about to say this. Go weapons hot and change your inclination to sweep the southern hemisphere for that lake. I'll stay in this orbit and check the northern hemisphere. And go full life signs check. There might be somebody down there now."

"Safety features removed from all weapons. Switching orbital inclination now, reinsertion in 11 minutes. The sensor pass at 40,000 kilometers should take about 20 more minutes after that."

"What's your fuel state?"

"14,570 kilograms."

"You'll be okay for at least three hours then. Aerobatics school is cancelled for now. Zane, you get a reprieve."

"Come on, I was looking forward to it."

"You'll still get it," Tess said. "Pipe down for a bit."

"Thanks," Scott said on the intercom between his fighter's seats. "I'm starting to have a really bad feeling about this place."

"Can we go somewhere else?"

"I'm already looking for another planet close by. The problem is that Haley's translight drive is decimating her fuel supply. She started out with slightly more fuel than me and she's got 25,000 kilos less than me now. I don't want to risk going too far away from here."

"Any other options here? Maybe a Mars-like planet with some water?"

"No. The other options here are hot Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, conventional Jupiter, and two Neptune-class planets. If all we needed was fuel, we have a deployable system that can collect hydrogen from the upper atmosphere of a Jupiter or Saturn-class gas giant. That's not a pleasant time, I've had to do it twice."

"What's wrong with just flying around a planet?"

"The process takes four to six days. We can't burn helium in the reactor, so the refueling apparatus has to filter it all out. That takes a long time to do properly."

"Oh, okay, not so pleasant as a nice Earth-type place where you can get out and stretch your legs. Why isn't Haley fixing her own?"

"Field fighter repair isn't a mandatory training course. I learned it from my plane captain. She doesn't know the engines all that well, and honestly, I'm sort of in uncharted territory because I've never worked on a Wasp Senior before, but I think I can figure it out."

"Exactly how long will you need to be under the hood to get it fixed?"

"18 to 24 hours. You got an idea?"

"I might have a backup plan. Do you have access to a pressure suit in here somewhere?"

"It's a bitch to get into, but I do have one. There's a compartment below me with it. Takes about an hour to put on."

"This planet's satellite looks a lot like Luna back home."

Scott pulled up the data file on the planet and its lone natural satellite. The text also appeared on Tess's monitor in the back. "4,065 kilometers in diameter, rotational period 32 days, barycentric orbital period 34 days. Yeah, it's a Luna-class body all right."

"How much will the suit slow you down?"

"Double the time, at least."

"What about an air supply?"

"Haley will have to suit up and come out. The suit's tank is designed to feed off a fighter's air supply if there's one available. We can actually plug me into her bird while I'm close enough to it to work."

"If you land close enough to the terminator, the temperatures should be comfortable enough to not tax your suit's power supply either."

"Good thinking."

"Ah, you already knew it."

Scott turned around and looked out the back of his cockpit. "Tess, look forward, will ya? I despise any mention of an EVA. They're a major pain in my ass. So, no, I don't know everything there is to know about them. Every now and then, even the greatest minds in the universe need someone to knock them down a notch. That's one thing I allow in my command back home that a lot of ship bosses back home will have none of."

"What's that?"

"Everyone has a voice as long as we're not in a firefight. If someone's got something to say, they can say it. As long as they're respectful about it, and courteous enough to take it to a private setting if needed, I'll listen to anyone who has a plan. I like your idea, I'm just not looking forward to implementing it if things come to that. If we do it, do you think we'll have to move in mid-stream to get back to the temperature sweet spot?"

"If it takes two days of straight work, probably."

"Plus I'll have to take at least one break to catch a nap, eat, and hydrate. This whole situation has pitfalls to it."

"What pitfall is there to landing on the planet and fixing it?"

"We need to be by that fresh water so we can run a couple hoses into it and just suck up the water for the refueling system. That way, both can be set to maximum efficiency and not be a danger to anyone walking or working in the area. If that's on the night side of the planet, it means we'll have to make camp on a planet with no artificial light sources. And if I'm not mistaken, it's new moon, so no moon to work with either."

"We can sleep in the fighters. Wait until morning, and the three of us will set up camp while you get to work. According to this file, the planet's day is comparable to Earth, so we should be in space by tomorrow afternoon if we find the lake, right?"

"You are correct. All I want to do right now is take some pain pills for my leg and go to sleep."

"The one you had the femur replaced in?"

"Yeah. It's fuckin' killing me right now."

"How long ago did you have that surgery?"

"About two and a half years. I had the tumor in my knee taken out just over a month ago. Maybe that's radiating, I don't know."

"What do you take for that?"

"A synthetic opiate. Are you asking for it?"

"No, but do you have the molecular formula in the computer?"

"I think so." A few seconds later, Scott put the sum total of the medicine on Tess's monitor. He didn't show the structure of the drug, just how many of what atoms were present. "How's that?"

"We have something similar to this. How long have you been on it?"

"Three years, give or take."

"If you'd been taking our drug for that long, we'd call you an addict."

"I have to take a pain check every three months to keep my prescription alive. It's a test to see how the nerves in my leg are reacting to stimuli produced by my body."

"So they can externally check your pain levels?"

"To an extent. It used to have the usual effects, make me high and put me to sleep. Now, it just handles the pain. I can pass any sobriety test you or anyone else wants to put me through."

"Once we land and get settled, do you mind if I take a look at it?"

"At the drug? I probably shouldn't give that one to you, especially if you already have something similar."

"No, your leg."

"You're welcome to it."

"You sound tired."

"Nah, not really. I did sleep when I said I was going to."

"No, I mean longer term than that."

"Yeah, well, that's not gonna be fixed until I can go home and retire from this job. And as long as we have an active enemy out there, that's just not going to be a possibility."

"You sound sad about that."

"It's been a quandry for centuries. Are you being a better provider for your family if you're sending home everything the family needs, but you're never there to be a father or a mother? In my case, I don't have to worry about the financial or the material things, I just have to worry about keeping them all alive."

"Instead of your wife saying 'Dad's out working so we can have a nice home', she's saying 'Dad's out there fighting so we don't get killed', right?"

"Well, not quite yet. My oldest is three."

"I've got the lake," Haley said on the radio. "It's just east of the midnight line."

"What's it look like?"

"According to the database, it's the lake that used to be at 20 degrees north latitude. It's now at 28 degrees south latitude. And it's warm."

"Define warm."

"Current air temperature is 26 degrees. The weather program thinks it'll get up to 40 during the day. We need to finish up in two planetary days though."

"What's coming?"

"A cold front that will drop daytime highs to 15 degrees. I did a distance check to the star."

"I'm not gonna like that number, am I?"

"Nope. The planet is two million kilometers closer to the star now than it is in our time."

"Okay, class, let's assume this planet is the same one in my time and something happens between now and then to redefine its orbit, change its axis tilt by 50 degrees, and stabilize a new rotation program, all in 1,600 years. What exactly could pull this off?"

Silence reigned over the radio for about half a minute. "I know nothing," Tess said. "Not a clue. Obviously, some huge impact or a near pass by a neutron star could do it. But for the place to recover in 1,600 years is asking a lot."

"1,200 years actually. The colonization corporation that claimed this place gets here in 3211. Either way, yeah, it's still a lot to ask."

"You haven't seen anything like this?" Zane asked.

"Not even close. The corrective actions would take centuries to work. Haley, plot us a landing course. We need to be within 100 meters of the waterline to run the hoses out."

"There's a decent spot on the eastern edge. The sun will be up in about five hours. Sleep in the fighters until dawn, then we can eat a field ration and set up camp."

"How far from the landing site are the trees?"

"Maybe 500 meters. Fuel for a fire won't be a problem, but why do we even need one?"

"You'll get surprised tonight. Trust me, you'll love it," Scott said. "It's a food I haven't shown you yet. Besides, we need light if we're going to be in tents. I'll follow you in."

"Copy that. We can at least open the canopies when we're down."

The two fighters started changing course and heading for their landing spot. 45 minutes after beginning reentry, the ships were on the ground next to the lake.

"Welcome to your first foreign planet," Scott said to Tess. "How's it feel?"

"Ask me in the morning when I get to walk around. Going to bed?"

"Yeah, I am. I'll sleep a little better now that we're on land. You have an idea about my leg, don't you?"

"How'd you know?"

"You wouldn't have asked to look just to gawk at the problems."

"I can't possibly guess because I don't know the details of your surgeries. It sounds to me like you have a form of thrombosis. You're getting blood clots from sitting too long in this ship. How many pilots who do what you do have had this many health problems with one leg?"

"I seriously doubt any have. Before me, a Carsten's femur transplant at a bare minimum took the pilot out of the cockpit for good."

"Your tone says you didn't have such an amazing recovery that it rewrote the rules."

"Yeah. It wasn't so great. I mean, I followed the program, went through my chemotherapy and everything was fine."

"When you take us back to Earth, would you at least consider letting me run a couple tests to see if you are forming clots?"

"What's the cure for this problem?"

"Blood thinners. Don't jump at that, there are some low-powered ones that we have and I'm sure you have parallel therapies. It may take care of the pain. Even if it doesn't, not having the potential for life-ending clots is a good thing. Did they seriously not consider the possibility?"

"Can I be honest with you… or, I should say, can I be a typical patient?"

"You let the doctors' explanations go in one ear and out the other, then you asked your wife what they were really saying later?"

"That pretty much sums it up."

"I know your wife's got your best interest at heart, but it's never a good idea for family to get involved that deeply."

"She almost had to cut that thing out of my leg. And I was paying a little attention, I don't remember blood clots being a possible side effect."

"If I remember what Allison said, you had a benign tumor taken off as a teenager, then a malignant one out of your knee recently, complete with radiation seeding to knock it down some, right?"

"You are."

"Maybe the femur surgery isn't the sole cause. Add up all three and you're probably a unique study. Is it always weird to be on a planet that's this dark out?"

"They do exist. This is what Earth was like before we developed street lights. Kinda nice, don't you think?"

"I like it a lot."

"I'm taking my pill and going to sleep until dawn. You gonna try to close your eyes?"

"It'll be easy here. Can I open the top?"

"In a couple minutes. The ship's checking the atmosphere to be sure it's the same as we know in our time. When the red strip around the bottom of the canopy turns green, open it up. Don't get out until dawn though, too much chance of breaking an ankle or something."

"Aye-aye, Captain," Tess said. "Can we go swimming?"

"If the water checks out, sure. Don't tell me you brought a bathing suit."

"I did indeed. You have to have some on this ship somewhere."

"I do. The SF-6 is way bigger than its predecessor, so we can carry a lot more stuff. The idea is that we can be more self-sufficient in the field with more gear. Good night, Tess… I'm putting this body to bed."

Half an hour after the yellow star's light hit the ground at the landing site, all four people started checking the area and making preparations for their short-term stay. After a breakfast of field rations that consisted of actual food and not some nutrition bar, Scott dove into fixing the broken ship. By what Tess called "noon", camp was finished and she, Zane, and Haley had gathered enough wood to keep a fire going for a while.

Scott took a break, grabbed something to eat out of his fighter, and headed to the beach. Zane was watching Tess and Haley in the water.

"You could go in if you wanted to," Scott said. "What's on your mind?"

"Haley didn't lock down her database as well as you did. I found the award presentation."

"You watch it all?"

"Yeah, I did. Were you going to tell me?"

"No. And before you ask, I don't know anything else."

"Is it me?"

"If I had to guess, yeah. You're the one that doesn't make it. And you should thank Haley when she comes out of the water."

"Why?"

"Because our fighters line up the same. Obviously, we're not carrying the entire knowledge base of over 1,400 planets in the computers. If I download a module, her fighter does too. If she gets one for her ship, I get it too. The hardware is different, she carries a different base weapon package than I do and the controls in her front seat are backwards from mine because she's right-handed and I'm left-handed. Aside from that and the slight differences in the paint job, these ships are identical and they work together to stay that way."

"So the lockouts you had in place, she went in and took out so I could find this?"

"I would say that's accurate. I told her what I found and she thought it was unfair that I wasn't telling you. Call it her way of fixing something she didn't like. She's prone to doing that on occasion."

"Are you going to rip her for it?"

"No." Scott sat the foil bag holding his lunch in the sand and turned to look at Zane. "You people have known us for three days and you think you've got us all figured out. Haley might be new to Alliance society, but she's her own person. You, Blake, and Tess, and probably everyone else, you all think I'm controlling her every move and that's why I'm sleeping with her. You couldn't be farther from the truth."

"So why do it?"

"Because I do love her. I love both of them. And maybe that's my fault, I don't know. My wingman shoots my first wife once in the head and saves my life at my firing range. A woman who loves me, she comes up and puts four more in the wife's chest, drops the gun, and has that look in her eyes of complete relief… you had to have been there to understand. Don't get me wrong, and she and I have never discussed it, but I'm reasonably sure her motives aren't pure where my Zoe's concerned."

"Tess seems to have warmed up to you a bit. What did you talk about on the way here?"

"Different stuff. I think she knows I'm human now."

"You gonna tell her?"

"Tell her what?"

"That Allison and Carter aren't the same Allison and Carter she knew before the time shift."

"How the hell do you tell someone about that? 'Oh, hey, by the way, after your town's little homecoming, five residents went back from 1947 and when they came back, they brought back an extra guy and he fucked everything up, including your life.' Yeah, that'll end well. Do I want to tell her? Yes, absolutely."

"Then let Haley and me do it. If you're not gonna rip her for telling me, that's saying that you approve of it."

"Zane, it's part of my job to turn my back on occasion while my underlings do things I can't get away with. That's what my boss did, to a certain extent, while I was out making a name for myself. Yeah, I didn't tell her to do it, but I didn't specifically say for her not to do it."

"There ya go."

"Congratulations, you set me up nicely for that. You two conspire to do it?"

"Not a word, I promise."

"What words were exchanged?"

"I thought when I talked to her in Café Diem that she was idolizing you because you were the guy who brought her home. That's not the case."

"Really?" Scott said smugly.

"If my time's really limited, I hope I find someone who loves me that much. If your wife ever leaves you or something happens to her, or even if it doesn't, you're in good hands."

"I know. From what I heard about you, you've made a hell of a transformation since I got here."

"It was already underway. When I found out about Grant's fake resume, I started paying attention. Being an asshole's no way to go through life."

"Be glad it's not part of your job description. And Zane… I swear, I don't have any details on what happens. If I did, I'd think about telling you."

"That's as good as I can expect."

"How far out are they?"

"Probably 50 meters or so. The water's really warm. I did walk around in the shallows a bit."

"I'm going in later. Tess wants to look at my leg," Scott said as he pointed to his right leg, exposed by the loose white shorts he wore in place of a flight suit. "While she's doing that, tell Haley I told her to help you. Fill her in on what happened to everyone, what we learned at that security person's house, and when Tess is done examining me, she's all yours."

Zane looked down at Scott's scarred thigh and knee. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I had cancer, technically three times. One benign tumor taken out of my knee over a decade ago. A couple years ago or so, they had to replace the femur, and last month, they took out another tumor, a malignant one, from my knee again."

"Does it hurt?"

"Like a bitch. Wave them in, I'm going to finish up this lunch while they're coming."

"That kind of tumor can kill you," Zane said.

"So can any number of things out here. You're getting a very, very controlled tour of the galaxy, even though we're out here to look for a signal that was sent Earth's way. Haley and I are good at what we do, good enough to fly VIP's from point to point when we have to. We know how to keep our passengers out of trouble while we're showing them a good time. If there's any real trouble on this trip, I'll let you know about it. Do you know how to shoot a gun?"

"A gun from my time? Yeah, I have on occasion. So has Tess, I've heard her talk about it."

"Ours aren't too much different. Bullets haven't changed all that much and we're not carrying lasers or particle beams because of the hideous energy requirements. If I hand you one, you'll know we're in actual trouble."

"You carry extra?"

"I have a small armory on the fighter. So does Haley, although that's another difference. All her guns eject their casings to the right. All mine eject to the left because I'm a left-eyed shooter."

Scott walked back to his fighter, finished what was left in his food pouch, and headed to the tents, which were set up about 20 meters apart between the two ships. Tess, Zane, and Haley came up from the water's edge together.

"The water's warm," Haley said as she threw her arms around Scott, getting him wet through his light t-shirt. "I love you."

"Love you too. Having fun?"

"Yeah, I think so. What's up?"

"I took my lunch break and Dr. Fontana…"

"Tess, dammit!"

"You're going to work for a bit! She wants to look at my leg and see if I'm getting blood clots. Maybe it'll help with the pain. I figured now's a good time since I'm half-undressed anyway."

"How are the repairs coming?" Haley asked. She let Scott go, but grabbed both his hands and held them.

"A little ahead of schedule. We're still going to be here until midday tomorrow no matter what."

"You have time to knock off a little early and go swimming?"

"I think so."

"Good. We haven't been swimming in a while."

"The water's that good, eh?"

"Better. It's clearer than the pool water at the house."

"Good enough then. I'll be swimming tonight."

"Come on," Zane said, "I'll buy you lunch while Tess is poking and prodding him."

"She'll only be a few minutes," Scott said.

"Be careful with him, Tess. Please."

"I'm not doing anything invasive, just taking a look and feeling a few places," Tess said. "I'll be easy on him for now."

Zane and Haley headed to her fighter to get something from the field ration section. Scott laid down on a tent flap that extended for three meters or so out of the entry flap of either enclosure.

"I know it's not your normal exam table," Scott said. "There it is."

"How long did the femur replacement take and how much of your bone did they take out?"

"I was under for just over 20 hours. I think I was in the operating suite for 18 and a half. They took 17.5 centimeters of the bone, which took out the entire tumor. I had a 6 week chemo course afterwards as backup in case some of the cells escaped."

"Tell me if I start to hurt you. Have you had any meds today?"

"When I got up, I took one."

Tess started pressing around the scar. "Does activity cause it to hurt?"

"Yeah, I try not to do too much climbing. Walking doesn't seem to bother it as much. I've been up and down on different parts of that fighter for the last six hours."

"Is that the pace you'll have to keep up for the rest of the repair?"

"Not really. I'll be on the wing probably until I stop for the night."

"How bad was the damage?"

"We were stopping here for repairs. I'm not sure the drive would have even restarted."

"Is yours in danger of doing the same thing?"

"No, thankfully. After my crash, the engines and fusion reactor were swapped out for new ones."

"What's the worst-case scenario, let's say one of these ships can't make it back to your time. What do you do?"

"Before or after we drop you off at Earth?"

"Both."

"If it's before, one of us will ferry you and Zane back to Earth while staying on whatever planet like this one we can find. If it's after, we'll just make a run for home in the remaining ship."

"What will you do with the dead one?"

"Standard operating procedure dictates using the largest nuclear warhead from the surviving ship to destroy the dead one to avoid it falling into anyone's hands. That doesn't mean we waste the big bomb on my ship. It does mean that we turn the dead ship into space dust. That's one protocol I have followed and I'll continue to follow to the letter. If possible, we strip the dead one for all parts and supplies, just in case we're stuck in this time."

"I figured it was something like that."

"Sorry, Tess, I can't even consider leaving a fighter behind."

"I wasn't suggesting it. I just wanted to know the plan."

"Speaking of plans, we never really discussed this one. Zane said you know how to shoot."

"I've handled a gun or two."

"If I ever hand you one, that's when you know we're in real trouble."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

"Did you enjoy your swim?"

"I loved it. We were the first girls to swim on this planet."

"Now you're starting to think like one of us. Be first to do something."

"Haley told me about you and her. I think I owe you an apology."

"What for?"

"Weird thoughts. I thought you were taking advantage of her to get in her pants."

"No such thing. I got all of that out of the way before I went to flight school anyway. Am I free to go?"

"I think you are clotting, maybe not as much as I thought you were, but there's something going on. Let me put you under a scanner at Global and take a look. I can at least give you something you can tell your wife and she can pass it along to your other doctors."

"Is this because of the pain meds?"

"Nah, it's because I don't like seeing people walking around with a problem that can be fixed. And I don't get to practice my medical doctorship as much as I'd like."

"Deal." Scott stood up and saw Haley and Zane heading for the tent. "Tess, if you want to talk, I'll be on the port wing of Haley's fighter, okay?"

"Uh, sure."

Scott's path to the downed fighter took him by Zane and Haley. She sent Zane on while she stopped to talk to the boss for a second.

"Is what he said true?" Haley asked. She closed the distance to zero between her and Scott.

"It's true. She's eternally pissed off at two people who aren't the people she thinks they are. Or something like that. Time travel's starting to give me a headache."

"Me too. Zane said he asked you the question that was on his mind. Are you mad at me?"

"How can I ever be mad at you for doing what's right? Was letting him find that proper? No, of course not. But it was the right thing to do and I'm not in a position to do it. You are."

"You expected me to unlock that info?"

"I didn't know. I'm sorry for telling you what to do when you already know what to do, like with the spectrum aging program. You sounded a little mad at me."

"I know what I'm doing. I wasn't mad, maybe a little annoyed though. I was trained by the best. I'm not going to mess up."

"I told Tess that if she wanted to talk, I'd be on your bird. I'm not sure how she's gonna take this, so if she comes running, just make sure she doesn't start hitting me. They both said you've made quite an impression."

"I told them how I feel about you. Just the truth."

"How are you feeling?"

"About what?"

"About all this?"

"I love you. I like that I can say it in mixed company, I can express my emotions without fear of reprisal from anyone. I can hold your hands, I can kiss you, hug you, do all the things that normal couples get to do. I don't have to worry about someone reporting us to the Fleet Admiral."

"I think she already knows."

"Does it mean I get to walk down the corridor on Achernar and say what I'm feeling? I did my research before I told you I wanted this, so I can't say I didn't know what I was getting into. It's just liberating being here, it's a feeling I didn't think I'd have. I really like being your girlfriend, out in the open, no hidden meaning conversations, no running to quarters when we want to talk, none of that. And no one in that town that saw us in the café looked at us any differently because we kissed or whatever."

"It's not always going to be like that, you know."

"I know. Zoe's working on a plan to make sure that all three of us get to express ourselves when you and I aren't in uniform. No, I don't know what she has up her sleeve, but I know she's pissed about the ultraconservative Earth culture and not being able to hold both our hands in public. I better go, I think Zane might need backup for this."

"You'll do fine. I love you."

"Love you too. Take care of my bird, okay?"

"I will."

Scott headed back to tackle the engine problems. Tess sat down on the same tent material that Scott laid on for his exam. Haley and Zane flanked her.

"What's so serious?" Tess asked. "Zane said you both needed to talk to me."

"I only found out a little while ago," Haley said. "There's something you should know about some of the people in Eureka."

"They're all weird. The whole place is a damn insane asylum," Tess said. "What's new about that?"

"Tess," Haley said, "apparently, Scott and I aren't the only people in town who have been victims of time travel, and I mean that exactly like I said it. Victims."

"I haven't changed times," Tess said.

"I'm going to start with this," Zane said. "I saw the Nobel award ceremony, so I know someone meets their demise. You think it's me, right?"

Tess sighed and tilted her head a bit as she looked at Zane. "I wanted to tell you. It's the whole time line though, you can't mess with it."

"I know," Zane said in probably the most understanding tone of voice that ever came out of his mouth. "That's why we didn't want to tell you about others in town traveling in time."

"Then don't tell me. What does it have to do with me anyway?"

"It affected people you know," Zane said. "On Founders' Day, five people went back in time. Jo Lupo, Henry Deacon, Douglas Fargo, Jack Carter, and Allison Blake."

"Oh, no, no, no," Tess said. "They couldn't have!"

"I saw evidence of it," Zane continued. "Somehow, Einstein's bridge device sent them back to 1947. With the help of someone there, they managed to get back to the future."

Tess started to tear up a bit. Haley put her arm around Tess and tried to calm her down. "We can stop if you can't take this," Haley said in almost a whisper.

"I'd rather hear it than think about it."

"In the timeline these people came from, Kevin Blake was autistic and couldn't communicate with anyone. Henry wasn't married. Fargo had a girlfriend and wasn't GD's director…"

"The place would be more sane without him in that office."

"You might not think so when I finish," Zane smiled. "You broke up with Carter and went to Australia. You tried to make it work long distance, but it didn't. I proposed to Lupo on Founders' Day. She was still Carter's deputy, not the head of security. And Allison was head of GD."

"Tess," Haley said, "Scott told me how mad you were at the Sheriff and Dr. Blake. These versions of them aren't the ones you knew. I'm not trying to tell you that you shouldn't be angry, because if something so bad ever happened between me and Scott that we stopped seeing each other, I couldn't stand to see him with another woman, not even Zoe…"

"She means his wife," Zane said. "Not Carter's daughter."

"Time travel theory," Tess said as she tried to calm down by redirecting her thoughts, "says that going back and coming forward shouldn't cause that many problems unless there was a serious complication."

"There was," Zane said. "Remember our new town historian, Dr. Charles Grant?"

"He had a thing for Alison. He was good looking, but in a different sort of way."

"He was the complication," Zane said. "Five went back, six came forward."

"Oh, no," Tess said. She realized the inherent problems. "That guy caused all these differences… for us, anyway. Any major real world problems?"

"None," Zane said. "They did a lot of checking. Aside from the personality changes, everything's basically as it was."

"My Jack's gone then?"

"As best we can tell," Zane said. "This is new territory for all of us."

"I loved Jack," Tess said. "He was the best guy I'd come across in a long, long time."

"Something might happen between them," Haley said. "Relationships don't always last forever."

"No," Tess said. "When he came back to the smart house after the Founders' Day ceremonies, he was different. He was surprised to see me sitting in his living room. Now I know why. I wasn't supposed to be there."

"They can't exactly talk about it," Zane said. "Not without screwing things up worse."

"It's why Scott and I have been hesitant to talk about much of anything," Haley said. "When we get back to our time, I want him to still have three daughters to go home to. We have to get there with minimal interruption."

"Zane," Tess said, "I'll be okay. Can you give us a minute? It's girl talk."

"I'll go tell him how it went," Zane said. "Are you going to be okay?"

Tess smiled. "You know, I'm just getting to know the three people who are now my immediate support network. Zane, you're a changed man and I like it. Don't change back into the ass you were. As for the other two, I haven't known them all that long, but I think I'm in good enough hands to deal with the problem at hand."

Zane headed for Scott's position. Haley let Tess go and the two of them moved to sit facing each other. "I think Scott wants to tell all of you everything, but he knows what that would do to the future. He and I are safe because we're here. That doesn't mean his family would be and those kids, especially Elisabeth, they're just as important to me as they are to him."

"That's what I wanted to ask you about. You know with genetic therapy and some surgery, your female issues might be straightened out."

"I know," Haley said. "But what are the odds of success?"

"50/50. Not so good when you think about it, I guess. But there's no risk."

"Zoe and I talked about it. The odds in my time are 75/25, but there's a heavy risk that I wouldn't be able to make love again or provide eggs. Right now, the ovaries are working and if I wasn't on birth control as a part of my hormone therapy, I'd be having cycles just like a regular woman. I don't want to take that chance though. Besides, in order to have kids, I'd have to be out of the military, and unless Scott can come out, I'm only coming out on a medical discharge."

"He said he couldn't ever leave."

"That's a little overstated, but not too much. We're both in too deep, that's what he says. If we're ever out of the military, believe it or not, Zoe said she would be a surrogate for me provided she has time left. I don't think I'll take her up on that though."

"That's an awesome thing for someone to offer."

"Scott's twins nearly killed her. She had to have them removed at 20 weeks for some reason. I don't know exactly what went wrong because Earth fell under attack that night and we had to go fight. I don't want to kill her with my child. Elisabeth already calls me Aunt Haley anyway. We'll probably try to explain the details later, much later. Tess, it's like I told you earlier and I told Zane when we were coming here. I know who am I and I know my options – and I've got a lot of them because of my bank account. I've got two people who love me and would do anything for me… I know for a fact the guy over there working on my fighter would die for me, and not just because we're partners in the military. How can I have it any better than that?"

"A cynic would point out the sharing problems."

"That same cynic might look at the situation and say I'm positioning myself for a potential move later on or I'm banking on someone who's 15 years older than me meeting an early demise, albeit not at my hands. I spent 17 years on a planet not knowing what it was like to have someone put me first. I have that now, I have it out of two people. You can say I'm making up for lost time if you want to. It's not about me right now, it's about you. Are you going to be okay?"

"Believe it or not, I'm better now than I was 15 minutes ago. I didn't do anything wrong in the relationship, and I know that now."

"You can't tell anyone."

"I know. I won't tell anyone. At least after you and Scott are gone, I'll be able to talk to Zane about it."

"I heard he was a real dick."

"He was. Apparently, he's grown up a lot in the last couple months. That's good for him."

"I'm sorry I had to bring this up…"

"Don't be. I've always wanted the truth out of people."

"So do I. That's one thing I like about Scott, he'll always answer honestly."

"Did he ever tell you what he thought of Dr. Blake?"

"You mean the woman who gave him his physical?"

"That's her."

"His first impression wasn't too glowing. Once you moved us to that apartment, he said she wasn't all that great looking, not as great as she thought, and that she was hiding something. I didn't get that impression from you, not more than the job dictated anyway."

"I was doing an examination. Allison was conducting an interrogation disguised as an examination."

"Why'd you ask that?"

"Because he said something in the fighter on the way here that kind of depressed me and I thought he was cheering me up by slamming Allison."

"What did he say about you?"

"He said I was better looking than her and that I had a better personality. It's kind of hard to judge that second part though, it's not like we've all spent months getting to know each other. The timing didn't seem right though."

"He doesn't say things he doesn't mean. And he hates people who waste time by bullshitting or being evasive."

"I'm glad he was honest with me."

"Come on," Haley said. "I need to get some sun on me or I'll stay pale for the rest of my life."

Tess stood up and started heading to the beach area. "How do you combat that when you're on a ship?"

"UV lighting. It doesn't take much exposure to keep the body accustomed to sunlight. Our heads all have a small UV source that does the job while we're showering. It's not enough to turn everyone a nice, crispy shade of brown."

"I take it you don't like the tan look?"

"I've been on one real vacation with Scott and Zoe and Elisabeth. We went to Florida, and I saw so many people on the beach who look like they'd gotten their suntan in a nuclear reactor. I loaded up on clear sunscreen and headed out… my skin tone changed a little bit, just enough to look good."

"All the places in half a galaxy, and you went to Florida?"

"There are three big flight museums in the state. I took Scott to all three of 'em."

"And his wife just let you do it?"

"It's a disease called the Flight Bug. Zoe's was cured a long time ago. Scott's and mine, as bad as we have it, it would probably kill a normal person. I understand why scientists do what they do, you guys have to do it or things grind to a halt. I don't understand why someone would have a job like accountant or banker or something like that. It's got to be incredibly boring and they don't get to shoot at stuff."

Tess started laughing. "I know that last line was a load of crap."

"Okay, so it was. Still, counting money all day? Yeah, I pay someone to count my money for me."

"What will you do if you get out of the military eventually, if they let you go?"

"Scott's father has already offered me a job flying passenger liners for their company. A lot of ex-military pilots go into that after they're done with their term of service."

"The trip here was boring though. You don't see anything out the window, not even a featureless ocean."

"True. But when you get where you're going," Haley said. The two ladies were a few feet from the water's edge. "Look around you. And don't even get Scott started on the fun stuff to see in space. He can lose himself in the astrophysics of any situation."

"I'm an astrophysicist," Tess said. "I get where he's coming from with it. He doesn't bore you to sleep, does he?"

"Nah, I like it. If I ever go back to school, that's one field I'd consider. I've already learned a lot from him and it's helped me with my flying. The point is that, yeah, the trip is part of the fun, but it's not half the journey anymore. Not unless something goes wrong, in which case we could do a hell of a lot worse than we did by finding this place."

"Did you really tell him he was out of his mind?"

"Yeah, I did… because he was. You don't go climbing down holes on a planet like that, but he was all ready with the descent gear."

"How much of that was personal?"

"Not much. That was his wingman talking for the most part. The woman probably would have let him do it. For that matter, the hole was close to four meters across… if it hadn't been so cold and our cyanide warnings hadn't tripped, I might have gone down there with him."

"You're as crazy as he is."

"I can be. I know I have to be his safety switch though. Seriously though, it's an adventure, all of it is. Especially now that we're in exploration mode trying to track down different races of people. No one knows if we're going to find people or a fight when we drop out of translight."

"What kind of technology do you need?"

"Again, if I tell you…"

"I won't tell anyone."

"The antimatter bomb on the underside of Scott's fighter isn't ours. It's in our casing and it's got our engines in the ass end of it. There's a race out there we don't know anything about, but we found that they use the power of a star to dump into antimatter production, and instead of using the output as a portable power source, they use it as a weapon."

"Solar powered antimatter. How big are their solar panels?"

"The last set we came across, somewhere in the neighborhood of 295 quadrillion square kilometers."

"There's only one thing in the universe that could possibly be that big," Tess said. "They really exist?"

"Built in the distant past by a race that we don't know anything about. There are older races in the universe and some of them choose to meddle in the affairs of the younger races, like humans and basically everyone in the Milky Way. Some wanted to stay out of it, but they're being dragged in, and it's turning into what you'd call a World War here on Earth. The prize is finding the weapons and putting them to use before an enemy does it to you."

"Do unto others before they do unto you?"

Haley smiled. "That's exactly what we say actually."

"Do you think we're going to find that signal we're looking for?"

"I doubt it," Haley said. "Scott wanted to come out and make sure whatever it is doesn't come back to bite you guys in the ass once we're gone. If I sent it, and I'd only do that by accident, I would be long, long gone by the time the fighters got to my position. Having my fighter break down didn't help matters either."

"What if we get to this ice planet and find that the signal's behind what he called enemy lines?"

"Over in the other side of the galaxy?" Haley paused for a few seconds. "I don't know. He'll think about it and look at the situation. The problem is a lack of knowledge."

"Like you knew about this planet and its history, but over in that part of the galaxy, you don't know anything about it?"

"Exactly. We just don't know what's out there or who's out there."

"If we find the signal's over in enemy territory, can you convince him to chase it down?" Tess asked.

"I could try. If the situation is right, he might do it. Why do you want to go chasing it if we don't come across it?"

"I want to know what it is."

"I think you might be overestimating my influence. If Commander McClellan doesn't want to do something, there's nothing I can do to change it. I can bat my eyelashes at him all day and it's not gonna change his mind."

"How can I change his mind?" Tess asked.

"You don't get a direct answer to that one. I'll say that we've already talked about the answer though."

Tess smiled. "Can I use your fighter's computer to look for eye candy?"

"No, and that's not because I'm dodging you. He'll have it in ground standby mode running diagnostics on the translight drive. You'll have to use his for database searches."

"Can you unlock it a little bit so I can find some good objects?"

"Tess, the first one's a freebie. After that, he'll know what you're doing. Trust me, I've been down this road with him. If he likes you, he'll tell you he knows and he'll play the game anyway. So you better make the first one a good one."

"Why are you agreeing to this?"

"Because there's a distinct possibility that our appearance on Earth in this time draws fire down on you and if the source of it is that signal, we need to find it and deal with it before we go home. That's why."

"Where's Zane?"

Haley looked around and spotted him climbing into the back seat of her fighter. "Maybe there's more clock time on the computer than I thought. Looks like he's gonna do some work."

"Better for us or worse for us?"

"Better. Especially if he's helping."

Haley and Tess started heading toward the working jet black fighter. "Can he monitor us with those fancy glasses?"

"He can, but I doubt he'll bother. He's probably using them to interface with my ship to fighter out what needs yanked and what doesn't. If he didn't have them, it would be a 30 hour repair job. As cool as they are, they don't do that much. Database searches, monitoring, and communication is as far as they go."

The women worked for two hours on a list of astronomical oddities that would take the pair of ships past the line Scott decided not to cross. Zane spent that time trying every possible combination of search parameters to discover when he died and why so he could try to put a stop to it. The 10 characters that gave him the answer stirred up so many emotions that he couldn't quantify them into any meaningful arrangement. Zane came across some less disturbing information as he read onward, something that could convince a co-consipirator to help with a plan to make sure things happened differently.

Zane went to Scott's fighter and separated Tess from Haley, with the excuse that he needed to talk about something that might affect the timeline. They walked a good 500 meters from the two fighters into the trees away from the shore.

"He locked down all the data on me and you and Henry and everyone else he could think of," Zane said. "He missed a few people."

"Zane," Tess said, "what are you babbling about?"

"I found out how I die and who I die with. I can't stay here. I have to go back with them to keep it from happening."

"I can't hear this. You're poisoning everything and you damn well know it…"

"It affects you too. Sort of. Carter goes down too."

Tess stopped her ranting. "How the hell does your death affect him?"

"Do you know what an A380 is?"

"You mean the monstrosity that's bigger than a 747? Yeah, I flew on one a couple times when I was in Australia. It's a nice ride."

"The U.S. air traffic situation straightens up and flying becomes a little easier. American buys 10 of them to fly coast-to-coast routes. The first one takes off from Logan to SFO on May 25, 2018. When it's crossing the Rockies, the fly-by-wire system goes batty and it slams into a mountain at 550 miles an hour. I'm on it. So's Zoe."

"She despises flying, Zane. Hates it more than anything. What the hell would possess her…" Tess stopped in mid-sentence when she realized the answer to her own question. "You got her to fly on that plane."

"I couldn't find that answer, but if I had to guess, yeah, that's exactly why."

"Don't fly on it. Simple solution."

"How much do we know about time travel, Tess?"

"Not much. Why?"

"What if doing that starts a Terminator-like domino effect?"

"I saw the movies, I'm not getting your reference."

"Every time they changed the date Skynet took over Earth, yes, they changed it. They never stopped it."

"So you take yourself out of the equation. You go forward in time and you're not here to die, so Zoe lives on. How do I figure in?"

"You don't, not necessarily. One of the names the good Commander locked out was Jack Carter. I did find a summary of his obituary, dated July 25, 2018. How much do you wanna bet the cause of that death is self-inflicted?"

"What do you want to bet they might have planted that for you to find?"

"Oh, come on," Zane said.

"I'm kidding. They've both got too much on their minds to worry about stupid shit like that. The question now is how do we get you in one of those ships for their return trip to their time? And how much are you going to screw things up when you do it?"

"I did a little research on that. Because the trip is so far into the future, the effects should go down exponentially. The reason Smoker Boy screwed things up so bad is because the trip was 63 years, not over 1,600 years. Which one of them will be more sympathetic?" Zane asked.

*fade to black*, Super "See you next season!"


	3. Chapter 3

I went easier on Allison! It was always in the plans for Tess and Scott to lighten up on her – read and you'll understand why Tess's anger was misplaced! The pace does pick up and get sort of like an episode.

After what seemed to be an innocent day of work, a dose of campfire conversation, and some planning for what came next, the foursome split up and went to their tents. Some time during the night, Tess went to the water's edge for a moment of thought.

"Busy?" Scott asked as he sneaked up behind her.

"Couldn't sleep," Tess said. "Too much to look at." Halfway up in the sky over the water was a bright blue star close to the brightness of Venus as seen from Earth in the morning or evening sky.

"Yeah, I know the feeling."

"How bright do you think that thing is?"

"Absolutely or visually?"

"Well, it's blue, so that'll fool us to an extent. Both."

"Absolute's about minus 15. I'd say it's about minus 4 right now. Which means we're about 5,100 light years away from it."

"Don't tell me you memorized a chart with the distances and the differences between absolute and visual magnitudes."

"Okay, I won't. I'm just a lot of fun at parties."

"Really? What other tricks do you know?"

"The most impressive one by far is being given two stars and telling someone how far apart they are by using their coordinates in Earth's sky and the known distances from home. Now that's impressive, to me anyway."

"Got a computer chip in that brain of yours?"

"Nah. Just good at a few forms of math."

"I figured you'd be in there adding a planet to your and Haley's resume."

"I was wrong on her injection date, so she took it this evening. Tends to make her drowsy a few hours later. Thanks for getting your biochem department to make those two meds for her."

"Glad to do it. I'm experiencing the quid pro quo now."

"You know, I think you might be right about what you said when we were coming here."

"Oh?"

"We are jaded to an extent. This is a job right now, so I can't let myself get into the astronomy like I want though."

"I think I can back off that stance a bit now. Maybe we're in the agree to disagree territory now."

"Yeah, maybe so. It sure is nice here though."

"What about tomorrow? Or later today? We need to find that signal, or at least get a…"

"We will," Scott said. "I already made the decision. There's a shitload of risk that you and Donovan need to be aware of though."

"Like what? We're already broken down on a foreign planet."

"A very, very comfortable foreign planet that we knew about. Once we cross the green line, that's what we called the stalemate front, I don't have access to that knowledge base. If something goes wrong, it probably won't be this hospitable and we won't know if there are natives around or not. The only good thing about this is that we're operating in an area that I know very, very well, including a little bit on the enemy side, but that's as it is in my day, not now."

"Will we have to stop for fuel?"

"Depends on what we find. Our fighters will have a range of about 300,000 light years by the time I have Haley's fixed. After that, who knows what we'll get into. I don't. I do have a question for you though."

"What's that?"

"If we get out there and we get in trouble, and by trouble, I mean the kind I can solve with my overly itchy trigger finger, are you going to sleep at night knowing that you were along for it?"

"Are you just going to piss whatever or whoever it is off more?"

"That's a possibility. Unfortunately, this is the galaxy at large. It's not a real warm and fuzzy kind of place."

"You're doing what you're doing for Earth. As much as I want to meet whoever it is, if they don't want to meet us, I think you gotta react, and that's a change in a stance because a year ago, I fought to stop shooting. Remember, I'm in charge of one of the United States' technological terror factories. Don't mistake my love for E.T. for not recognizing what might have to be done."

"Then tomorrow, we go hunting. What else is on your mind?"

"How do you know I'm thinking about something else?"

"Because if you weren't, you wouldn't have asked that question."

"Good point. Can I ask you when I figure out how?"

"Yeah."

"Can we go see that star up close?"

"The hypergiant? Not in a fighter. It's too hot. There are a few places in the galaxy I can't go on my own, I'm afraid."

"What if the signal came from one of those places?"

Scott looked at Tess. "Then we let it go. You don't go hunting something in a high rad zone like a hypergiant. That's the perfect way to put your ass on the menu and that's the last thing we want to do out here."

"Weren't we on the menu the moment we left Earth?"

"Survival rule number one is that you don't hunt anything that can hunt you. I break that most of the time though. The consequence to that can be, and often is, a shitload of vaporized bodies on the other end of an excessively large thermonuclear explosion designed to convince whatever's hunting me to cease and desist and go back to hunting other more tasty things. Or just crawl back into whatever hole they crawled out of. Either way, I've managed to live through the experience and that's what counts."

"That's your response. What about Haley?"

"Her eyes will be on me. If I get in trouble, she'll come in and bail me out, and while my last answer might make me seem like I don't have a conscience, take my word for it, mine is huge compared to hers, especially if I'm involved. She will annihilate any threat to me and she won't think about the consequences to whatever she's shooting in the process."

"You trust her a lot."

"Who else do I have out here to count on? You can't do it. Zane can't do it. She can."

"What if she's in trouble?"

"Then that means it's on me to bail her out. And I'll do just that."

Scott's link to his fighter, which was laying on the ground between him and Tess, lit up and started beeping, interrupting the conversation. He checked it, read through a couple pages of information, and stood up.

"Signal's back," he said. "Second time might just be the charm."

Tess and Scott made their way to the fighters, Scott's in particular, and took their seats. Scott closed both canopies so their surface screens could help in the data distribution.

"Come on, come on," Tess said after 10 minutes. "Where is it?"

"Nowhere good," Scott said. "The site of the biggest diplomatic mystery in Alliance history, that's where."

"Spill it!"

"Skyeserenia. It's 45,200 light years from here, give or take." Scott sighed. "They are their own people, a race of humanoids close to the green line with lots of resources and a couple planets that would make for good bases. Well, they stayed independent until four years ago. The Alliance had been talking to them for 20 years about joining and finally got it. We sent a dreadnought there with the final diplomatic mission, all they had to do was ink the papers in a five minute ceremony on the flight deck and it's done. The locals came on board, they were all happy and everything, then the lead diplomat said he needed to call the planet. He did, then came back to the table, thanked the Alliance reps for their time, and apologized, but the Skyeserenians wouldn't be joining, and they left. They joined the enemy a week later and we haven't heard a word from them since."

"Is that the whole story?"

"I know someone that was on Challenger when it went down. That's exactly what happened. She was on the flight deck in the pilot assembly. That diplomatic affair will help us though."

"How?"

"I have their planet's entire history on board, the one they gave us anyway. There might be a clue buried in it somewhere. You feel like sleeping now?"

"Not really."

"It's on your monitor. Read through it. I'm gonna go work on Haley's fighter and think about a plan. Because right now, I don't have one."

"Shouldn't she be reading this instead of me?"

"That med knocks her out for 8 or 9 hours. She slept through the signal alert, she won't wake up for me. Happy reading, Tess. If you want to talk to me, hit button 4 on the comm, it'll call my glasses. We need to save a little time."

"Got it. Damn, they're ugly suckers, aren't they?" Tess saw the yellowish faces in the beginning of the document. "Do they have livers? They look jaundiced."

"Beats me. I don't know physiology. The only thing I know is that they have double a human's radiation tolerance, so we had to be tougher when we dealt with them in a ground combat situation."

Scott cussed and fussed his way through two hours of repairs by flashlight, in which he got an hour's worth of daytime work completed. A fairly stiff breeze started blowing over the area, enough to throw around a couple of lighter things the foursome had left on the ground.

"Hey, I don't like waking up alone," Haley yelled from the ground, "why are you working? And who turned on the fan?"

"We got the signal," Scott replied. "Skyeserenia. Tess is reading their file."

"Can you work in the rain?"

"No! Can you handle my fighter for a little trip?"

"I think so. What are you thinking?"

"Go up to the stratosphere and see if you can get a fix on how long I have before this shit blows me away."

"How long do you need to fix that thing?"

"6 hours. Tell Tess reading time's over until you get back."

"Scott, we can't break camp in the dark."

"Fine, take her up with you then. Go now. I need to know if we're going to be sheltering in place for a day of torrential rains."

"What about the hose?"

"The fighter's full of fuel now. Just disconnect it and top off the tank when you get back. You won't burn that much just going up to look at the weather."

Haley took the working ship into the atmosphere to check the weather. Scott kept working, despite the wind becoming more and more of an issue. Once well into the stratosphere, Haley heard a huge gasp from the back seat.

"Are you watching the weather?"

"Haley, how much of an explosion do those antimatter bombs make?"

"The nuclear equivalent, like 65 or 70 gigatons."

"What about a ground explosion? How far from ground zero do they vaporize?"

"I've never deployed one against a ground target. Scott has though."

"Can he hear us?"

"Button 4 on the comm display. Yeah, he can. If we're out of direct range of his glasses, they'll repeat through my ship."

"What about seeing what's on the monitor?"

"That will relay too if he wants to see it."

"He will," Tess said as she switched over. "Scott?"

"Yeah, I'm here. How bad is it?"

"We're still looking," Tess said. "How big of a bang does this antimatter bomb make against a ground target?"

"I wasn't lying when I gave you the yield. Somewhere between 65 and 70 gigatons. Only one tested outside that range, and the estimate on it was 71.2."

"No, no, no, not fucking yield. What's the blast radius from ground zero?"

"Then you should have asked that question," Scott said. "The fireball goes out about 500 kilometers, depending on conditions. Why? What the hell did you find in that file?"

"I found out why they didn't join you. You told me that the fighters before yours were radically different. How?"

"They were no more than 20 meters long, way more slender, kind of dart-shaped, I guess. That was the SF-5. The SF-4 was a two-seater, side by side, and only carried plasma torpedo launchers, no nuclear warheads. A lot of people wanted to use a different designator for the SF-6 because this thing isn't related to anything we've flown before."

"What version was on the ship that went to this planet?"

"The 6A, same thing you're sitting in now. All those shuttle-named dreadnoughts were the first ships the SF-6 was deployed on. New ships from that point had their launch bays configured for the 6. Anything older either went through a refit or they're still flying SF-5's."

"So they walked into a hangar full of fighters that look like yours?"

"Not the same paint job. At that time, they were probably all base gray, but yeah, the design's the same. People didn't have time to apply their own livery."

"They had seen an SF-6 before. They'll see it some time in the next day or so."

Tess heard the wind blowing for a few seconds. "What the fuck am I gonna do to them?"

"The signal we tracked, it's what they call the Lighthouse Project. It's a faster than light transmitter designed to signal other races that can hear it that there are other races out in the stars. The estimated range goes out to another galaxy, I'm guessing they're talking about Andromeda and not a satellite of the Milky Way."

"As strong as that was at Earth, I wouldn't be surprised. Do you have details about it?"

"They have a complex, and my math might be off, but it looks to be about 90,000 square kilometers in size. It's a gigantic thing, powered by several fission reactors. It's generations of work."

"And legend says that it was destroyed by a pair of black SF-6's whose technology was straight out of a science fiction novel?"

"Yep."

"Tess, I know what's waiting in Andromeda. If they wake it up, whoever's left in this galaxy will be speaking another language in 10 years, and I'm being generous. You aren't ready for that."

"So that's it?"

"I have a lot to think about."

"Can you do it with your smaller weapons?"

"Antimatter's cleaner than fusion bombs. Yeah, we could carpet bomb it with all of our smaller weapons, but you won't want to be downwind of it. If their reactors are close to the center, they'll be vaporized."

"The area of the planet you hit… do you even want to hear it?"

"Unlike most people who do this sort of thing, yeah, I want to know what kind of hell I'm about to bring down on someone's head, even if it's for doing among the most stupid things they could possibly do."

"The area of the planet changes their language. They use their term for black hole much like we do. They come up with a new name for the space phenomenon and reapply the wording to the sterile desert on their planet."

"No wonder they closed the door on us."

"Have you ever been near there, in your day, I mean?"

"A few times. Holy shit," Scott said as he stopped talking.

"What?" Haley said. "Yes, I'm listening."

"I got within a few light years of that place once. I was flying from Mostling to a mission way behind enemy lines at the time, the one I told you a little about on the way here. The whole fuckin' place lit up and started launching after me, and I was alone at the time. They know the ship that did the deed. What's the weather report?"

"10 hours," Haley said. "That's all you got."

"Good enough, bring it home. Tess, what numbers do you have?"

"Don't torture yourself…"

"I'm just gonna read it myself anyway. If I'm gonna do the crime, I want to know the details."

"50 million dead in the initial attack, 150 to 200 million estimated dead following it. They don't talk to anyone off planet until the Alliance shows up in 3608."

"Lovely, the race that sent them the antimatter message is the one they decide to talk to. This is getting better and better."

"Yeah, no wonder they went running for the other side."

"I can't blame them. If you knew what was waiting, you'd shoot that bomb yourself."

"How bad?"

"The guys who are waiting out there don't do everything like we do with nukes and such. They have a thirst for ground combat and they're good fighters. They'll tear through a city and kill the locals hand to hand. Do you understand why I told you that talking is a bad idea that first night on the hill?"

"I do now."

"Haley, when you land, I need you to write a new scanning protocol."

"What for?"

"Anything Arcturian of this era. Just humor me."

"You think they know this is out here because of the one you talked to at the facility?" Haley said.

Scott chuckled. "We weren't gonna tell them about that."

"What facility?" Tess yelled.

"Yours," Scott said. "Yes, you have an alien who looks like a human walking around. Do me a favor and sit on it. She told me I needed to come out here and deal with this. I might not have done it otherwise. And yes, I think they know about it and either they couldn't get here to do anything about it or they don't have enough weapons to do the job right. We have a 65 gigaton firecracker at our disposal. Tess, do they have a representation of the fighter in that file?"

"It's here."

"Put it on your monitor," Scott said. "I want to take a look. My blood's probably about to boil."

"Why?" Tess asked.

"You've had that information for 20 minutes. You don't think someone in my time made that connection and wondered how the hell one of our newest fighters destroyed a project that could have ended our galaxy 1,600 years in the past?"

"Good point. There it is."

Scott saw a photographic-quality drawing of the two SF-6 fighters in his glasses. "Yeah, looky, looky, it's the mad bombers from the deep, dark past."

"You don't have to do it like that," Tess said.

"Did my weapon give them pause and make them stop developing this goddamned thing?"

"You know it did."

"If I ignore this and just go home, I'll be coming back to a galaxy owned by a race of people I want to see exterminated. I can't let this go."

"What else do you need from me?" Haley asked.

"Plot the course from here to Skyeserenia. As soon as the sun comes up, break camp and make damn sure we don't leave anything aside from dead skin cells and footprints behind. How are my consumables?"

"79,725 kilos of hydrogen and 9,970 kilos of oxygen."

"Very good. Carry on."

"Copy that. 428 Siera out."

"Your call sign is your fighter's, not yours."

"You're a damn perfectionist. 428 Delta out."

"What's one letter mean?" Tess asked.

"Our fighters have what amounts to serial numbers. His is 3732259428 Delta. Mine is 6924648428 Siera. Unless there's a ship with the same last three and letter, that's what we use to identify ourselves. If there was another 428 Siera on Achernar, I'd go deeper until they weren't duplicates."

"You think he's picking on you?"

"If I did that back home and a flight controller recognized my transponder as being different from my call, it's grounds for them to alert ship defense to light me up on my way in and have security check me after I land. He's not picking on me, it can be a major screw up."

"Haley," Tess said, "is he really going to do this?"

"I've seen how the Cradda fight. He's not going to just do it, he has to do it."

"What's the best case scenario?"

"That the Cradda didn't hear the transmission at all. If they do hear it, the ideal situation for them is to ignore it once it goes off. If they come to check out the source, they'll find it bombed out of existence, by a single weapon which might just look like a malfunction. In our day, they inhabit over 4,500 planets in Andromeda. That's their manpower pool, versus whatever is here, and you're not advanced enough to fight them. I know you don't want to hear this, but Scott's plan was and is the best way to deal with this problem."

"Is that Star Captain Dalembert's opinion or Haley's opinion?"

"It's both," Haley said softly. "And part of that is motivated by fear too."

"What are you scared of?"

"Have you eaten anything recently?"

"Not since we did smores without crackers."

Haley put Scott's fighter on autopilot and brought up some pictures for Tess to see. "That's what they did to a couple of our ships they boarded. They hacked the crew to pieces. That's their base plan of attack, and they've done it to the other side's planets, 13 of them so far. Civilians, and I mean babies to the elderly, face the same fate as the Alliance soldiers whose pictures you're seeing. If we don't do this and we go forward, the timeline might be destroyed because you've already pointed out, Scott destroys this signal right here and right now. If he doesn't do this, he and I cease to be. Earth will be wiped out, and Sabik will never be colonized, so the Alliance won't form and they won't send out expedition ships, I won't be born in GSB 2629B, and that's the end of that. I have a particular fondness for being and I'd rather not stop being."

"Are you sure they're that big of a threat?"

"Tess, they're that big of a threat to us in our time with ships full of these fighters and weapons. We don't even know if we can win the war with them in our day, and I mean every word of that. I'm privileged to get some additional information that doesn't make it into most reports. Our boss is scared we're going to lose. Scott's father is preparing to run, because his son and his son's wingman are quite literally public enemy number one to the Cradda and if the Alliance loses or surrenders, they're going to want both our heads stuck on a pike above their new capitol world. Please don't give him any more grief about this. I know he's not going to like doing it, but he has to do it. And if he won't, then I know where to get another antimatter bomb and I'll come out here and do it myself. Doesn't matter, that transmitter gets turned off. Today."

"Does his father know about the two of you?"

"I think he suspects, but he doesn't know. He overlooks it and is probably telling himself it's because I'm Scott's wingman – his dad was in the military and was a pilot at one time, so he knows how it can be. The relationship is another reason I don't want to be in a disaster situation with the rest of the family. A lot of officers I've dealt with aren't affected when they have to take a lot of lives, and I can include myself in that group. Scott feels it, but he can isolate that feeling, especially today. This has to happen."

"That's just a lot of people."

"It's them or everyone. That's the choice here. Can you make out which ship took the shot?"

"It's his. The silver on the nose area is the giveaway. Why?"

"Because if we had time, I'd switch the bomb to my ship and I'd do it for him. But I can't do that if that information says he did it."

"Why would you do that?"

"My job is to keep my pilot out of trouble. I'm his wingman, in the air, in space, and out of both. If taking the shot's a problem for him, then it falls to me. Because of my personal investment in his well-being, I don't really have a lot of feelings for anything that happens to be on the receiving end of whatever I shoot. Some folks back home have called me a cold-hearted bitch because it seems like I really don't care about the consequences of what I do. Truth is, I care a great deal, but all that care goes to one person. The Fleet Admiral told me, even before this relationship started, to keep Scott out of trouble. That's what I do."

"I get it, I don't have to like it."

"If you did like it, I'd be more worried about you than I am now," Haley said. "Landing in 60 seconds. Check your restraints. And if you have any thoughts about getting Zane onto one of our fighters, you'd better tell him nothing about what's going to happen when we get to Skyeserenia."

"Excuse me?"

"One of you had your radio on vox yesterday when you had your little meeting in the woods about his fate. Scott didn't hear the conversation, but I did."

"Does that mean you're going to help?"

"It means we can talk about it. After whatever is sending a signal is destroyed. Not before."

"How? If you blow up the signal, we'll go straight to Earth, and you guys have enough fuel to drop us off and leave immediately."

"We can preset 10 channels on the comm system when it's in elementary mode. Button 8 from the back will be on a separate frequency that goes to my front seat only. We'll talk on the way home."

"Are you saying you're going to consider it?"

"I have a lot of things to consider right now. Among them is not going home at all."

"Haley," Tess said, "you have to."

"What if we don't go home, but we go back to a reality that's been altered in a bad, bad way? One where we're marked for death worse than we are now, because the Cradda already know Scott and me personally and they've put out a ransom on us. Or we pop out of the time tunnel and we're smack in the middle of enemy territory or on the other side of the universe somehow? When does the unknown become too risky to try?"

"You handle the unknown every day…"

Haley landed Scott's fighter in exactly the same place he parked it a day earlier. "When I was on my home planet, I read everything I could from our ship's computer system about a shitload of topics. Now, I don't have a science degree like you, Scott, or Zane, and I have a lot of information in my head that's out of context, but I do have common sense and everyone who was in a science class with me in flight school came to me for advice, so apparently, I do have a high-functioning brain in my head. That being said, I don't understand time travel and all the pitfalls included in it. That's a mark against me because of my upbringing. Fine, whatever. I don't want to lose Scott and I don't want to lose my life when I go home. Going after this signal, that's as much about protecting our time as it is keeping the galaxy alive in this time."

"You'll make a good scientist if you pursue it."

"That's what Scott says about me."

"I wish you guys hadn't come to Earth now. There's a lot going on that no one would have dreamed about four days ago."

"Me too," Haley said. "Four days ago, I felt like I was in control of some part of my life. Not anymore."

Tess and Haley climbed out of the fighter and headed to Scott's work area on the damaged ship. The sun was still 90 minutes from the horizon at the time.

"Well?" Scott yelled down when he realized he had visitors.

"Fix it or we're stuck here for three days up to our eyeballs in mud," Haley said. "How's it going?"

"It goes. New assignment for you two. Tess, how much information was in that file about the signal project?"

"Quite a bit."

"Find out where it's going to be pointing in 15 hours. If they're sending out a signal, it only makes sense that they have a way of tracking inbound craft. Haley, once she tells you where it's pointing, plot a course that takes us to the other side of the planet."

"Got it."

"So you're thinking they're only looking in the direction of the signal?" Tess said. "Makes sense, I guess. Why am I doing the figuring?"

"You said you work with signals, right? Time to put up or shut up."

* * *

Back on Earth, the 1947 Five gathered at the Sheriff's office for a gettogether. It was close to the end of the day – Christmas Eve at that.

"I wonder where they are," Alison asked. "If the numbers are right, they should be close to the end of the trip by now."

"Why Zane," Jo mumbled as she finished her Vinspresso. "I mean, it's Zane."

"He flies," Henry said. "They asked me."

"And you said no?" Jo said.

"An asthma attack in a tight cockpit wouldn't end well. If it was some big ship, I'd go yesterday."

"Jo," Fargo asked, "did you go through Dr. Fontana's reinstatement package from the Army?"

"It's legit, Fargo. I wish they'd leave her out there somewhere. I can't help but think the futurists will side with Tess and Zane when it comes to our little time travel problem."

"They already did," Alison commented. "Zane figured it out and got Scott on board. You know he went and told Haley. The only question left is if they all sit Tess down in the snow on that planet they're going to and tell her about it."

"She's the last person I wanted to see make a return to town," Carter said.

"Who's that?" Zoe asked as she walked into the room. "Zane's not in your cell?"

"Hi, honey… no, he's not here."

"I came by his apartment on the way here. His car's there but he's not. I figured you arrested him."

"No arrest," Carter said. "He left you a note. The Army called and asked for him to go somewhere for them."

Carter pulled the sealed note out of his desk and handed it to his daughter. He had serious doubts about whether Zane's summary of the contents were accurate. Zoe read through the two pages a couple times.

"I can't believe it, the Army actually likes Zane now."

"They like what he can do," Jo said. "That's for sure."

"He said he went with Tess," Zoe said. "When did she come back to town? And why the hell for? I hope you meant she was the last person you wanted to see here."

"Time for dinner," Fargo said. "I'm buying."

"I'm in," Henry and Jo both said in an obvious attempt to evade the conversation. The threesome filed out of the office as fast as they could.

"You know where he is?" Zoe asked as she tossed the letter on her father's desk.

"Yeah, I do," Carter said. "And I can't tell you."

"Why not? Alison, you know too, don't you."

"Yes."

"Must be Bizarro Day in Eureka," Zoe said. "The least trusted person in this whole town goes from outcast to off on some secret job for the Army."

"There were things I couldn't tell your mom either," Carter said. "It's not ideal, but that's the way it is. Zane's the last person I would have picked for the job… if I was qualified to pick people for it, that is."

"Zoe," Allison said, "there were things Nathan and I couldn't tell each other. The job gets in the way sometimes."

"He's somewhere he's always wanted to go," Carter said. "Just trust what he had to say to you."

"Is he in trouble?"

"No," Allison said. "He got a chance to do something 90 percent of the people in this town wanted to do at some point in their life. Like your dad said, just trust that he'll get through it and come home."

Carter sighed just a bit when he realized Allison had just put her foot squarely in her mouth. "Get through it," Zoe said with hostility. "What did they do, ship him to Afghanistan? You know what, forget I asked. I'll see you at home sometime."

Carter let Zoe leave without trying to intervene. He learned that letting her blow off steam elsewhere was really the best plan. "We screwed that up," he muttered.

"She got one thing right," Allison said.

"What's that?"

"There's always the distinct possibility we never hear from them again. If that's the case, we need a cover story."

"You think her Afghanistan comment is the right one?"

"I don't know what Tess told Mansfield about this trip. If she kept it under wraps, he'll tear this town apart looking for his new pet."

"You're already thinking about it, so lay it out."

"She didn't have a whole lot of time to take over Section 5. She could have made it known that she was in charge, but I doubt she had time to lock it down. That takes time and she had precious few minutes after Fargo received notice of her takeover. If she didn't take care of everything, Fargo can still get in there and find out what she told Mansfield."

"What are we hoping happened?"

"I hope she told him. Otherwise, we'll all face a wrath unlike any other. I know, he chewed my ass more than once in the other timeline and unfortunately, I don't think he softened up any in this one."

"Allison, Zane may be a pest to us, but there are a lot of people in town who like him. If they don't come home, what should we tell them? Surely this has happened in town before."

"It has and we've always had a suitable cover story. The war on terror is as good a cover as any, I guess. We could say they were shipped to Iraq to… hell, I don't know. Covert surveillance of Iran's nuclear program? Zane to interpret data, Tess to try to crack encryption."

"You know anyone in the Air Force who's remotely friendly to you?"

"A few people. I've collaborated with some from Area 51 in our time."

"Think they'd set off a small explosion on their base that doesn't really exist? Or at least claim one happened if anyone asked?"

"Make that the secret project they had to go look at, and it blew up in their face? It's as good as anything, I guess."

"The next question becomes if and when you put the story in place. They're on a three day clock, right?"

"Give or take. 18 hours out, 36 to investigate and refuel, 18 hours inbound. Carter, we've had a shuttle sitting on the pad for two months and it's going to be there until February. I know our guests tried their best to make space travel look as routine as driving from here to Café Diem, but it's not and it won't be in their day. Henry once told me that the two most spoken words at KSC are 'shit happens.' Just like this town, it's a motto to live by and I'm sure they do."

"Are they in over their heads?"

"The guests? No. Tess and Zane? Maybe. I doubt the Commander would let anything happen to them if he can prevent it. But Jack, you know Tess. There's something out there talking and she gets a chance to go see it. Wild horses wouldn't keep her from it."

"Why do you think Tess and Zane are safe?"

"I've been around a few pilots who have handled VIP flights in the past. I get the feeling they've done it and they know how to keep passengers safe. It's like civilian flights with the Blue Angels… the pilot will push but they're not going to do anything totally insane."

"Unless they have to, right? This isn't an air show, it's the real world."

"I wish they hadn't gone. I understand the opportunity, it's just dangerous."

"You wish they'd asked you, don't ya?"

Allison smiled. "Does it show that much? Being just the medical director in this time sucks. I would have tried to go if I was still running the place."

"It's not really your field…"

"We've only had a few people from this town go into space, which of course, that's more than the average town, but still. This town is built on doing things we don't have the experience to do and that includes going into space or leaving the solar system."

"Come on," Carter said. "Let's go talk to the gang and figure out what we're going to do if this doesn't work out."

* * *

Dawn came to the two fighters. Much to Scott's relief, the natural light allowed him to work faster, despite the ever-increasing wind in advance of the rainstorm.

"I like this," Haley said when she climbed onto her fighter's wing behind her boss. "You do too."

"What do I like?"

"The wind. It's why you like living by the ocean."

"Part of the reason. Sea air's always been my favorite. You finish the course?"

"The signal will be pointing across the green line when we get there. We can fly straight in."

"Good. You think Tess can wear one of your flight suits?"

"Probably, they're a bit long on me."

"Suit her up. Take off the insignia, ribbon panel, and ship patch. And arm 'em both. If they want to fire a test round or two, shoot out over the water. Finding a round in 20 meters of water will be hard enough in 1,200 years."

"Tess found something else in the file that she wants to tell you about herself."

"Come on up," Scott yelled. He knew Tess was waiting at the bottom of the ladder leading up to the wing.

"You're clever," Tess said. "I was going to come up here and try to convince you to talk to them. The file explicity says that the bombing craft didn't respond to calls."

"Are they sending out a message with their beacon?"

"No. It's a carrier wave and nothing more."

"How'd they get a look at our ships?"

"Imaging satellite caught it."

"Then we fly on the back side of the planet, do half an orbit, fire the bomb, and make a beeline for Earth. You'll be home in a day and a half."

"Yeah," Tess said, "we need to talk about that."

"That's one thing that won't change in 1,600 years of human evolution. Women always are gonna drop the other foot. Haley, is this a double team or is Tess on her own?"

Tess glanced at Haley. "Call it a double team that I'm not too sure about participating in."

"Can I assume I just became judge of your case to send Zane with us?" Scott said.

"Not entirely," Tess said. "I know too much."

"So you want to come along for the ride?"

"I think it might be the best thing for the timeline. I did some reading of your material on the subject. It suggests that because the switch goes so far into the future and the actual time travel site isn't anywhere near Earth that the ripple effect will neutralize the negative possibilities. How far away were you when you switched?"

"18 or 19 thousand light years."

"See, there you go."

"Tess, one extra guy hosed your time. You already saw it. And you're asking me to risk my time for it."

"We have a day and a half, right? Read the material for yourself and make your own decision."

"You want to tell me the real reason you want to do this?"

"For me, I really have read too much. It'll be hard to separate and not use it to influence what happens. I'm sure I've seen things that aren't included in the galactic size theory."

"What about Zane?"

"He found his own death notice in the computer. And he takes Carter's daughter with him."

"By your own reading of the material, I'm about to send a quarter of a billion people to their deaths to save the galaxy. And you want me to bring Zane forward to save your ex-boyfriend's daughter? Convince me that's not just a wee bit hypocritical."

"I can't do that," Tess said. "You're right, I'm a hypocrite for suggesting it."

"Good. On our way to Skyeserenia, you'll have 10 minutes to present me with relevant reading material to prove your case. I'll have this ship done in four hours, so you can either help Haley and Zane scrub camp clean after you change clothes and get armed or you can put together a presentation. As a part of that presentation, you'll need to account for exactly how you're going to tell the people in Eureka why you're doing this too."

"Why only 10 minutes?"

"Because I have to evaluate your information. That takes time as well. An hour after we lift off from the surface, you can talk to me about it."

"Can I have help?"

"As long as camp's broken, scrubbed, and Haley's satisfied that you and Zane aren't going to shoot yourselves in the foot, sure, why not. Now leave me alone and let me finish this damn thing before I put myself out of my misery!"

"What question do you want answered?" Tess asked.

"You have about 12 man-hours to break camp and figure that part out. You're the one asking the question, not me. That's your job to come up with it."

"Go get Zane up," Haley said. "I'll be there in a couple minutes."

Tess scooted off the fighter as fast as she could. "You didn't have much to say," Scott said.

"I didn't have to. She's right and you know it. They both are contaminated."

"She needs to prove to me that this isn't a mistake. I want a complete plan of action from the time we finish the bombing of that beacon until we arrive back in our time. I'm already leaning toward letting it happen because I did some reading of my own, but I want to see what they're bringing to the table."

"You want to know if they can play the game, don't you?"

"Considering we're going to have to sell them to the Fleet Admiral, yeah, I do. I don't doubt they have the brain pans to do it. I wonder if they can make the jump."

"I made the jump," Haley said. "And I was as handicapped or more than they will be from an educational standpoint."

"I know. If you hadn't, I wouldn't be considering it."

"So you think we're going to get home?"

"I hope we get home. If we don't, I got nothin'. You?"

"We're in uncharted territory already. No answers from me. I have learned one thing though."

"What's that?"

"I know why you challenged me with all sorts of problems I had no chance of solving while you were there to bail me out. Prep for the day when I face the situation and I don't have help."

"I told you there was a reason for everything. Go help, you'll buy Tess a few more minutes of research if you do."

"What prep do we need for arriving at home?"

"How well do you know the fighters' file system?"

"Patrick taught me pretty well."

"Change the backup routine to save any corrupted files to a special storage area. As soon as we're back on the network, the fighter will start checking all its information for updates and it should treat any changes in history as file corruption. Also, stick a temporary instruction in to download anything and everything concerning Camp Eureka and the town of Eureka, Oregon, and immediately put it under quarantine for the front screen only. I don't want either of them reading it before we do. And I know it's gonna take half an hour to verify all the information, but we need to do it to find out what playing field we're on. Did you find that obituary she mentioned?"

"It's for real. Zane and that cop's daughter die in a plane crash. I get why you're making her jump for this. Are you going to give them a chance?"

"I want to see how bad this could be. You heard what one extra person did to Eureka."

"If you say yes, do they get to go home one last time?"

"I'd rather not. We have to go to the 3635 position of Earth and fly to Sephralis' 3635 position to make this work though, so they'll be close."

"How close?"

Scott thought for a few seconds. "A little over a light year. The sun's rotation around the galaxy will take it that far from its current position. Since that was our target and not the current day position, that's where we'll have to start the return trip from."

"You're not taking into account the rotational speed of the galaxy at the time jump point or Sephralis' rotational speed, which is different from the Sun because it's at a different distance from the galactic core. Or are you just hoping to be close enough?"

"I'm getting too old for this shit. Go get Tess, I'll unlock the appropriate information and tell her what she needs to compute."

"Can't I just have the computer plot it?"

"Maybe. Do you trust your astrophysics enough on a one-shot course?"

"Tess it is."

Six hours after sunrise, Haley's fighter repairs were complete and the base camp had been scrubbed from Kitakyushu's surface. Before boarding the fighters, the four gathered between the two ships.

"Here's the deal," Scott said. "I just spent two hours reading about time travel and I have a massive headache because of it. Anyway, if you want to come with us, you can. I'm as sure as I can be that it's not going to cause us many problems if we hit the window right. But, there's a condition."

"We don't go home," Zane said. "Right?"

Scott nodded. "I'd prefer if you didn't. However, we can land, give the space station one or two orbits, then we need to go. Say goodbye and we get back to space as soon as the 12 prying eyes are below the horizon again."

"I travel light when it comes to sentimentality," Tess said. "I don't need anything from home, provided you're going to take care of us to start with."

"The military will," Haley said. "They did for me. Scott and I can make sure you get the same deal or we'll take care of it ourselves."

"Can I tell my family?" Zane asked. "I mean, I am going away for good."

"When it comes to disappearing," Scott said, "it might be best if you just go away. Tess, do you think Eureka will cover?"

"I think so."

"I made a couple changes to our flight plan," Haley said. "Speed 7,500 instead of 6,000. We'll be at Skyeserenia including system egress and ingress is 7 hours or so. From there, Earth is 13 and a half hours away. You'll be at perigee tomorrow afternoon west coast time."

"Let's go get this over with," Scott said. "I want to go home."

* * *

In another time period, a very old woman, probably closing on the century mark in years, stood in a dark office. The panoramic window she stared through looked down on Earth. A set of double doors on the far wall away from the woman opened, and a female wearing a black jumpsuit came into the office.

"Admiral," the second woman said, "Commander McClellan and Star Captain Dalembert are 120 hours overdue from their last check-in."

"You don't have to quote protocol to me, Deirdra, I wrote most of the ones we use now."

"Understood, ma'am. Rear Admiral Appier has already called, wondering where they are and when she could expect Achernar to join her task force."

"Tell her they're on a mission for me that you're not at liberty to discuss. If they are unavailable in 72 hours, Commander Grant will take Achernar out for the retrieval mission."

"Admiral, if I may ask, where are they?"

"I wish I knew. They'd better be writing history."

"If they aren't?"

"I love your optimism. If they're not, then we need to replace two of the best fighter pilots this military has ever seen with two from the ranks in a hurry. And they don't exist."

"Commander McClellan's wife has called three times today. I told her you were in meetings all day."

The older woman sighed. "Pull a file from the diplomatic archives. It's titled History of Skyeserenia. Put it on a data chip and use my override to delete it from the archive permanently. Once you're done with that, call the Commander's wife and tell her I'll see her at her home in two hours."

"I'll let your launch pilot know that you'll be ready to go in 90 minutes."

"Thank you. After that, contact Minister Caral of the Arcturian Interstellar Relations Bureau. Tell him 'it's happening now.' He'll know what you're talking about. Dismissed."

* * *

The whole bombing proved to be an anticlimax to the run for everyone. The two fighters arrived on the back side of the planet, away from the transmitter. After half an orbit, Scott launched his antimatter bomb, which tracked to the main signal output and exploded some 10 kilometers above the surface of the planet.

"Halfway to Earth," Haley announced over the channel designated for all four people. "I have a question for the class."

"Shoot," Scott said. "I'd love a good problem right about now."

"First, some background. Who flew this fighter before I took possession?"

"No one except for the standard test flights straight out of the factory. Its first mission was on the Sagittarius when we took battle damage and had to hole up in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Admiral assigned it to you when we got home because flew your first mission in it."

"I just did a database search. This fighter came with the Skyeserenia history document in memory. It's the only document of its kind in the system. Check yours and see if you downloaded something else in that category."

"Just a minute," Scott said. He ran the search on the console in his cockpit. "Nothing."

"When was the file placed in this ship's computer?" Tess asked. "That might be a clue."

Scott pulled up the file's information and thought for a few seconds. "Three days after I had my first up close and personal meeting with the Fleet Admiral."

"She recognized your fighter and put the clue in your database," Zane said. "Makes sense to me."

"Whole thing's been a goddamned set up," Scott said. "There's nothing I hate worse than being used… except for my first wife. You two thought about what you're gonna tell the folks back home?"

"I'll go first," Tess said. "Nothing, except that I'm leaving. I am going to grab all the supplies of Haley's medications that we've made, just in case time travel goes haywire. Scott, I'd like to put you under a scanner, if they'll let me."

"Okay," Scott said. "Zane, what about you?"

"Apologize to Lupo, tell Zoe I'm leaving for her, grab a few things out of my apartment, and I'm good to go."

"You sure you want to do that?" Haley asked.

"It's probably the first selfless thing I've done in my life. Part of Fargo's job is killing off townspeople in a way that doesn't bring attention. He can do that for my mom. I don't want to tell her about this."

"Good enough," Scott said. "ETA at Earth will be about 1300 hours Eureka time. Landing will depend on where the space station is when we're close enough to get its position."

"Hell of a Christmas present, isn't it, Tess?" Zane asked.

"A one way trip to the future. I'm not sure I'd call it a present. But we'll be the first group to celebrate simultaneous Christmases in two different times."

Scott laughed. "Only if you have Christmas in July. In my timeline, it's July 6th at 0225 hours Earth Standard Time, which is what you'd call Eastern Standard. If nothing goes wrong, we'll be eating dinner when we get to my time."

"What do we tell the people in Eureka?" Zane asked. "They're going to know the truth."

"I'd tell them you know too much to stay and leaving isn't going to change their timeline, so they'll all live their lives as intended," Scott replied. "You have to sell it without giving too much away."

"Yeah, that's gonna take some thinking," Zane said. "A lot of it actually."

"Tess," Scott said on the intercom, "you need to do some thinking too."

"I know. Go ahead and say it."

"You really need to hear it?"

"Yeah."

"She's not your Dr. Blake and he's not your Sheriff Carter. Let 'em live their lives."

"I will. I might even consider telling them."

"You shouldn't do that. That would show that you know for sure what happened to them. Maybe it'll be more fun if they wonder about your knowing."

"You're no fun. What's the biggest adjustment for us gonna be?"

"I think it'll be the concept of seasons. In the last two weeks, I've gone from a Maine summer to late fall going into winter to a Florida summer to a desert winter to Eureka in late December to a fairly hot, yet temperate Kitakyushu, back to Eureka, and hopefully back to the beginning of the cycle. And the clock never stops either. Yeah, the days of the week still hold for humans, or whatever race you run into, but it's a round-the-clock, round-the-calendar society."

"So I guess we can just throw out our circadian rhythm?"

"What's that?" Scott asked with a note of sarcasm. "You'll lose that inside of a week. Depending on what kind of job you have, you might go a month without seeing the stars and the month after that, you might not see a sun above the horizon. Then there are the stretches where you're stuck on a ship in space, and contrary to popular belief, it does get old."

"You weren't exactly easy on Allison and Jack either, you know."

"I'm an outsider, I'm allowed to be hard on people. In 24 hours, they'll be memories to me. They were a part of your life, a part you're about to leave behind. You sure you really want to do this?"

"As sure as anyone could be."

"Good enough then. Solar system in 6 hours and 15 minutes. 45 minutes after that, we'll touch down. How long will it take you to examine my leg?"

"Twenty minutes under the scanner will tell me everything I need to know. Are you ready for that result?"

"You mean am I ready for you to tell me the tumor's back? Yeah, I've been ready for that since I came out of surgery the first time."

"Let's say it is and you return to your time. What happens?"

"This time, they replace the entire femur, from my hip to my knee. No transplanted bone this time either. I get a titanium replacement and another drug to add to my arsenal of shit to take."

"Another lifetime med?"

"Yeah, this one to overdrive the bone marrow in the rest of my body to put out more blood cells because the body's losing a sizable chunk of its capability to do that." Scott paused for about a minute and did a bit of work on his keyboard. "You should have some files listed on your monitor now."

"The list's up."

"That's my medical history and medical database entries on the tumors I've had. You might want to read it and have a game plan in your head."

"Why?" Tess asked. She stopped herself before finishing the question. "Ah, in case this trip back to your future fails and I wind up treating you. That's a lack of confidence on your part."

"I guess it's no more secrets time. I just opened the medical database. While you're grabbing Haley's meds, you might want to pick up some analogs for my anti-rejection regime too. Just in case."

"What about chemo for you? You think it's back, don't you?"

"Sneakin' suspicion. Hindsight's perfect, right?"

"Always. You're experiencing symptoms you had before they found it?"

"The leg pain is worse now than it ever has been. It didn't really kick in until I ran into a table on the scout ship I ran. We went from 6 people on board to 24, and they added a table in the galley. I rammed into it and bruised my thigh, and from then on, it's been bad."

"Climbing up and down on that fighter a thousand times to fix it didn't help. Have you told the person over there who's covering your ass?"

"No, but I don't have to. She knows."

"What's the recovery time on a complete replacement?"

"For the normal person, anywhere from nine to 18 months. For me, they'll put me on Achernar as soon as I can sit up. We were supposed to ship out today."

"What will they do?"

"My X.O. will take the ship out. She's done it before. That might be better for me if it's back."

"Why?"

"If the ship's already out of dock and on a run, they won't turn it around to pick me up. This upcoming mission is scheduled to visit 20 galaxies and last until the job's done. You would have liked to have been on it. I know I would have."

"Even with your problem?"

"I've been to 15 different galaxies. No one in the Alliance has been to more, and if Achernar leaves without me, everyone on the ship will break my record. Read up on the condition and the treatment," Scott said. "It might fall to you, Doctor."

"If it's going to kill you and we don't land in your time… isn't the risk of going back to your time too great for you?"

"I want to go home and see my kids," Scott said firmly. "The longer we wait, the less chance there is of that happening. Study, you have seven hours to make a plan. I'm taking a nap before we get to the solar system. That's something else you'll figure out – you'll sleep when you can, part of your body rhythms being destroyed."

"You're getting cranky."

"For a lot of reasons. Let's just get this over with and let me take my shot at getting home."

"Give me the capsule version of this tumor."

"It's inside the bone, it weakens the structure, and one day, you take a step and it snaps. When that happens, you're dead. The tumor cells hit the bloodstream and they're all throughout your body before you can get to the emergency room. Metastatic cancer everywhere and there's not a damn thing they can do about it. What kind of a scan are you doing on it?"

"A magnetic resonance image and a bone density scan."

"It'll show up on the bone scan. The tumor's density is at most half of the bone, that's why it usually results in a shattered leg, although it can appear in any of the bones in the body."

"Hey, just out of curiosity. Whatever happened to the first U.S. space probes?"

"Which ones?"

"Voyager 1 and 2 and Pioneer 10 and 11."

"Ah, they're still out there. Among the laws member planets of the Alliance have to obey and can't get modified is the Historical Spacecraft Initiative. Basically, if a planet's launched a probe like any of those four, it's hands off and do not interfere. All four of them are within a tenth of a light year of the solar system."

"Does that law mean look but don't touch?"

"Pretty much. Once you've got yourself settled, call me. I'll take you on a grand tour. It's interesting to look at Earth's history from that perspective."

"Does every planet have a history lesson like that waiting to be seen?"

"Most do. Baby steps, that's what it takes. Tess, do you think Zane can learn to fly this ship?"

"He has an aptitude for flying. Why are you even thinking about that though, once we're in your time, we're not your problem anymore."

"If it's back and we don't wind up in my time or somewhere advanced enough to have replacement therapy, well… just read about it."

The clock ticked by noon, one, and two before the fighters made their final landing in Eureka. Tess suggested the four wait on folks from town to come, and they did. Carter met two Denalis from GD on their way to the site. Allison and Jack crossed the 50 meters or so of land to meet the four people, while the GD security people stayed near the vehicles.

"Well?" Allison asked. "What happened?"

"We turned the signal off," Tess said. "When you examined Commander McClellan, did you do a bone scan or an MRI of his right leg?"

"No," Allison said. "We don't have units to do that at the off-site infirmary."

"Scott," Tess said, "secure your ships."

"Already done."

"He needs that leg checked out, a full battery including an MRI and a bone density scan. While your techs are doing that, I need to talk to you and Zane needs to run to his apartment to get some things."

"Why does he need to get things?" Carter said. "You're not leaving again, are you?"

"Again?" Tess said. "Yeah, we are. And this time, we won't be back."

"Tess," Allison said, "that's asking for trouble."

"We can't stay," Zane said. "We know too much. If we stay here, things are going to happen that shouldn't happen."

"I'll sum it up," Scott said. "If they come back with us, the effects of their trip will be localized to the area that they pop into. That area's in the middle of the gap between spiral arms of the galaxy. There's no one there to hurt. And as far as anything else goes, the information I read on the way back from turning off the signal indicates that because the trip will be 1,625 years into the future, and not just 63 years, the effects will be further mitigated. Does that clarify things a bit more for you?"

Allison and Carter looked at each other in complete shock. "I'll need to look into it," Allison said.

"Hurry," Scott said. "I want to be back in space by dark. I can assume you're not going to try to hold us here, right?"

"No one's going to try anything like that," Carter said.

"Then let's go get my diagnosis," Scott said. "I have a family to go home to."

15 minutes later, Tess, Fargo, Carter, Henry, and Jo were in the director's office having a heated discussion about time travel. Allison chose to sit out and do Scott's exam instead of being in the room.

"How long does this part take?" Scott asked. He was laying halfway inside an MRI machine's tube.

"10 minutes or so," Allison said. "When I was grilling you during the first exam, I was scared…"

"It's okay," Scott said. "Really. Time travel gave you a son you didn't have before. Three or four years ago, I wouldn't have understood, but now that I have three daughters, I get it."

"Your big weapon's gone."

"Yes, it is. We had to turn off the signal. That's what it took."

"That big, eh?"

"Dr. Blake, please. Tess and Zane already know too much and I don't think you want to know enough to contaminate this timeline any more than it already is considering you've come out of it in a great position."

"How did Tess take the news about our trip?"

"Better than I thought she would. She understands that you and the Sheriff aren't the same ones that she went to college with and fell in love with respectively. I think she's a lot less angry now."

"You're sure those two going back with you won't cause you problems?"

"The chance is reasonably small. It's like I said on the hill, the physical distance from any people and the large jump in the number of years will minimize the damage."

"Why am I doing these tests on you now?"

Scott sighed. "Not my idea, it was Tess's. My leg's been hurting, gradually getting worse over the past few months. If our trip to my time doesn't work, she wants to be prepared to work on me. She's going to ask for drugs that might be useful, plus the stuff you made up for Haley."

"That won't be a problem. Are you in a hurry to get home?"

"Yeah, I am. I just wish all this had never happened."

"What did Zane find that turned him to leaving?"

Scott smiled. "I can't tell you that. Let's just say that if I was in his position, I'd leave too. It's kind of important."

"I was going to skip the bone scan," Allison said as she checked a monitor attached to the machine. "There's an anomaly in the femur. Time to switch tubes."

* * *

"We have to go," Tess yelled at the top of her lungs to Fargo, Henry, Carter, and Jo. "Don't try to keep us here."

"Hey," Jo said, "I'm all for it. Make sure Zane goes with you and I'm all smiles."

"Is that just because I can blow the whistle on all five of you and throw this town into a turmoil it'll never recover from?" Tess asked.

"Pretty much," Jo said.

"Tess," Carter said, "are you sure you want to do this?"

"I can't tell you what I found out, but if I did, you'd escort me to the ship and help me with my luggage. Fargo," Tess said as she turned to him, "let us go. Please."

Fargo took a deep breath. "Mansfield's going to be here in the morning. Will you be gone by then?"

"We'll be gone by dinner. I need a ride to my storage unit to grab a few things and as soon as Allison gets the supplies I asked for, we're ready to go back to the hill."

"Grab it and go," Fargo said. "We'll figure something out to cover for you."

"Thanks."

"I'll take you to your place," Carter said. "It'll be faster in my Jeep."

* * *

"What do you think it is?" Scott asked Allison as he took his place inside another medical machine.

"It might be a difference in the transplanted bone. How long is the segment?"

"17.5 centimeters."

"It's either that or you have a problem. The way you described this cancer, it's a lot like osteosarcoma, and we do have treatments for that here."

"I can't stay," Scott said. "All that would do is cause a lot more trouble."

"I have to offer. Comes with being a doctor, you know."

"Yeah, my wife would have said the same thing."

"What's her specialty?"

"Surgeon. General and trauma to be precise. She's also a pretty good doctor without a knife in her hand."

"She's worked on you before, hasn't she?"

"Before we were together, she did it twice. I don't want her cutting me unless it's the only alternative now. If something goes wrong, she doesn't deserve the bad feelings for trying to do something right."

"Dr. Blake," someone in scrubs said from down the hallway, "we need you to examine someone who just came up from Section 4 with acid burns."

"Go," Scott said. "Acid burns trump me. How long am I in here for?"

"12 more minutes. Just don't move around. I think you're a pro at this though, right?"

"I've done it once or twice. I'll be fine."

Allison headed off to do her exam. Scott closed his eyes and waited for the scan to complete. He was thinking about the bad news Allison might be delivering once the results to the second test were in her hands.

"Hello, Commander," a familiar voice said. "I see you made it back." The voice was attached to the red-head scientist who advised him to help with the signal problem.

"Oh, you again?" Scott said. "How'd you get in here?"

"The infirmary's not off limits to anyone. You'd be surprised how many people have experiments blow up in their face around this place. Did you take care of the problem?"

"You won't have to worry about it. There's an 800,000 square kilometer dead spot on the planet that was sending it out."

"And you'll be leaving as soon as they sort out your condition?"

"I hope we'll be gone by dark."

"I received word that the signal was no longer transmitting."

"Yeah, about that," Scott said. "You might want to stop talking to home base. They're picking up your signals here. It's only a matter of time before they figure out how to track them, then you're in a tough situation."

"They're pulling me. I leave town tomorrow evening for a two week vacation and I won't be coming back. I'll skip the details."

"Good idea. Now, if you'll excuse me, someone will be back to tell me my leg's about to fall apart in a few seconds."

"Medicine isn't my field, not directly anyway. However, I should let you know that if your attempt to go back to your time fails, you can come to us. How is your memory?"

"Pretty good."

The woman wrote a series of numbers on a pad of paper and held it over Scott's head. "Memorize that. It's my contact frequency from my mission here on Earth. I'll be home in eight or nine days, so if you don't get out of this time, hide out and contact me when I'm there."

"What if we just don't get back to our own time?"

"Use it anyway. If you wind up in a timeline where this happened, the Bureau of Interstellar Investigations will have it on file and respond to you. You saved the galaxy, it's only right for us to keep an eye on you and be there since there are relatively few races or planets that can understand what you're dealing with."

"Here's hoping we never meet again, and I say that in a completely good way."

"I understand, Commander. I hope we don't either. Have a good trip home."

"You too."

"Sara," Allison said from about 10 feet away, "cheerleading for those in the tubes again?"

"It's not a fun place to be, Dr. Blake."

"I thought you had gone home for the holidays."

"I planned on it, but Jared had a family emergency, so I told him I'd stay and man the lab if he paid for the difference in plane tickets for me to leave a week later."

"Sara's one of our lab technicians," Allison said to Scott. "She's a DNA genius. And when she takes her shortcut to the lab and sees someone here getting tested, she stops and talks to them."

"I don't mind," Scott said. "I hate the tube."

"I haven't seen you here before," Sara said. "Are you new?"

"Just here for the medical testing," Scott said.

"Scott's a Navy pilot temporarily assigned to Whidbey Island. They couldn't figure out what's wrong with his leg, so they asked if we could lend a hand to our Navy friends. Always good to have them owe us one," Allison said quickly.

"If my diagnosis is clean, I'll be out of here by zero hour."

"Good luck. Hopefully, you'll make that deadline."

Scott heard Sara walk off. The doors to the hallway opened and closed while Allison was checking the preliminary results.

"Not good, is it?" Scott asked.

"How confident are you that you're going to get back to your time?"

"17 cases, 17 successful returns with extremely minimal disturbance to the timeline. That's the score right now. Why?"

"What's the treatment the second time around?"

"Complete femur replacement with a titanium rod, fashioned after my own bone so it'll fit in the joints. This is gonna suck."

"Impressive procedure. How long will you be off duty?"

"If they let me recover, anywhere from nine months to a year and a half. In reality, as soon as I can get back in the fighter, they'll lift me in with a crane."

"Really?"

"Management has this mistaken impression that I make a difference when I'm flying. They'll do about anything they have to to get me out there."

"Can you access the scan from your first time around through your glasses?"

"Once I'm out of here and I can use my hands. Or if you can tap the top of the nose bridge twice, you'll turn on the voice activation."

Allison reached to Scott's face and touched his glasses. "Why don't you leave that on all the time?"

"Because some requests said during a fight that I'm running sound like requests to the glasses and they start displaying information. Display bone scan Sagittarius SPM 1."

"That you're running?" Allison asked.

"Go ahead and take off the glasses. You'll see the scan that Zoe and Kristen took on the ship the day it was discovered. That's the only one I have in the fighter's database because it was linked up with the ship at the time." Allison took the glasses and put them on. "When I'm in a fight and it's just me and Haley, I don't have to talk to her."

"We need this kind of interface," Allison said about the glasses. "Who came up with them?"

"It was a reinvention of sorts. Do you have heads-up displays?"

"In aircraft, sure."

"You already have the technology then, and probably prototypes of the device anyway. This is just a very small version with an excess of computing power and battery life disguised as a common item. Mine can also interface with the Alliance comm networks and I can talk to anyone in real time as long as I'm close to a relay point, plus I can control stuff with them. Fortunately, my bird serves as one and I'm never too far from it. What's the comparison?"

"Not good. It's slightly bigger than the one in your scan. How long after this scan did you have the surgery?"

"About three and a half months. We were on a mission and Zoe said it was safe, albeit unadvised, to finish. Once we made it home, I was checked out in a full sick bay and put on the list to get a replacement bone."

"Why not skip that part and go straight to the full fix?"

"That comes with its own set of problems. If the transplant works, it's a life fix. Bone replacements wear out and have to be redone. Are we done?"

"The scan's done. I'll go get Tess what she'll need to try to fix this in the field."

"I know it's not ideal," Scott said. "It's all we have to work with. I didn't bother to look, but what's the weather forecast like for this evening?"

"Cold," Allison said. "Colder than I'd like."

Allison moved the tray out of the bone tube and let Scott sit up. When he put his glasses back on, they flashed a weather warning. "How bad does the wind get around here?"

"We can get some nasty storms. Like tonight. I didn't pay attention to what was coming, part of just being the doctor."

"My fighter just reported 90 kph winds on the hilltop."

"How bad is that for your takeoff?"

"180 is our no-go. It's just a horrible ride to orbit at this point. Those ships are designed to fight in atmospheres of other planets, but they're not necessarily designed to land and takeoff in them. It's easier to go into Jupiter's atmosphere, take care of business, and leave than it would be to try to land in that kind of condition… if there was a place to do it, that is. Am I clear to get dressed?"

"Was there a backup plan if you didn't have a bone to stick in there?" Allison asked.

Scott rolled his eyes. "I knew you were gonna ask me that. If the tumor reached 20 centimeters, the plan would be to construct a bone graft out of pieces of my other bone and go from there."

"So you're considerably past the point of that procedure?"

"How big is it?"

"22.4 centimeters."

"I let Tess read the medical dictionary on it. I know it might be uncomfortable, but she has the information if you're picking drugs."

* * *

"What is it, Tess," Jack asked as Tess probed through a storage unit packed with her stuff from several different jobs and residences. "I mean, what the hell is wrong?"

"I can't tell you," Tess said. "Really. I saw something that happens, I know what the cause is, and if Zane and I go away, maybe it won't happen. No guarantees, but it's worth going to another time for."

"Are you sure?"

"Jack, all I have to do is go through a year of catching up, learn what government's like, pass a test, and I'm in. I don't have to sit here and listen to what's going on out there, I'll get to go. I already have a job offer."

"Really?"

"Astrophysics department on his ship. The top two are civilians already and there's always room for another brain."

"What's Zane planning on doing?"

"He's not sure yet. I think he wants to get there and weigh out his options. He has quite a few. You know what, I've got everything I want in the back of the Jeep. Wanna have some fun?"

"Fun?" Jack asked.

"Yeah, you've still got that spare room in the bunker, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Ya know, that's not right either. Ask Fargo for a time capsule permit for this locker. To be opened only by yours truly way in the future. Come on, let's go get this stuff to the ship so we can load it and go."

Jack's phone started ringing as soon as he and Tess sat down in the Jeep. After he exchanged a couple pleasantries with Allison, he handed the phone to Tess.

"Hello?"

"Tess, it's Allison. Tell me about what I'm getting ready to treat."

"Think osteosarcoma that doesn't want to leave the bone. When it gets too close to the surface, it turns inward toward the marrow or it heads lengthwise. It's almost like an infection, and that might be the root cause of the whole thing. It's bad, isn't it?"

"Over 22 centimeters of bad. He's getting dressed right now. You realize he's pretty much past the point of no return as far as drugs are concerned, at least in the realm of giving them a real chance at dealing with this thing."

"Humor me," Tess said. "I don't particularly want to tell the guy staying here means an amputation at the hip."

"Do you think they have a way to charge a battery?"

"Probably. Might take adjustments, but an air charger isn't out of reach."

"I'll put our oncology database on a laptop and let you take it with you."

"Thanks. Have you let Scott go yet?"

"He's right here, you need him?"

"For a minute, yeah."

Allison handed her phone to Scott, who was back in his flight suit. "What's up?"

"I have the stuff I'm going to take. Can I go ahead and load it up?"

"You still have your radio?"

"Yeah."

"Two clicks will take down the security field and allow two people to approach the birds. When you're done, do it again to reset things. I'll set it to drop a cargo skid and when you reset, the skid will retract."

"Got it. Thanks. How are you doing?"

"Haven't heard anything I didn't expect. I'll talk to you when you get back." Scott handed Allison the phone. "Where's Haley?"

"She's in Fargo's office, I think filling them in on what might be the finer points of this plan. You need a minute with her?"

"If I don't tell her, she'll think I'm hiding something. She's leaned toward staying here on a few occasions."

"Really?"

"Yeah. The threat of an amputation will take care of that."

Allison's phone rang again, before she and Scott could leave the testing area. This time, the call was for Scott straight up, from his wingman.

"Hey, you never were actually a squadron leader, were you?" Haley asked.

"No, I lead flights but I was never on the books as a S-boss. Skipped that step somehow. Why?"

"I was just reading some of the prep material, you know, for command school and stuff that I'm supposed to start when we come home from blowing up a comet. There's a standing order to photograph and report any fighter jock whose livery is purely black and silver to the Admiralty."

"To what position?"

"At the time this was written, a shade over 20 years ago, to SA-006. Where was our boss then?"

"She was SA-006 then. This has been her baby since the word go. Are you logged into our birds?"

"Yeah."

"Compare the date on that order to the Skyeserenia history document."

"The order's two days younger."

"They knew the whole fuckin' time. Keep that under your hat. If we get back, you can count on an immediate debrief on the whole situation."

"Got it. How'd the exam go?"

"Dr. Blake and I will be up there in a minute to talk about it. See you in a few."

Scott handed the phone back to Allison. "Dr. Blake, you can imagine I was probably a little hard on you behind your back because you were questioning me during the exam. I'm sorry."

Allison laughed. "I'll help you talk to her."

"Before you do, tell me what your procedure would be if for some reason I couldn't leave this planet again."

"We'd use chemotherapy and radiation on the tumor to see if we could reduce the size and cut down on the loss of your leg when the time came."

"So amputation would be a certainty?"

"Unless you have some friends out there in this time that can give us the secrets to your procedures that allow a complete replacement of the femur, yes. I'm sure you would give us the access, but I think the tech gap would stop us from doing it in time to save the leg or you."

* * *

Zane was in his apartment packing a couple bags of his favorite t-shirts and a few momentos of his crime-ridden past. The door to the sparsely-decorated domicile opened behind him.

"Hi!" Zoe said. She bounced up to him and threw her arms around him. "I missed you."

"Hey, Zoe," Zane said rather weakly.

"Unpacking? Where'd you go? I didn't see any Army cars outside."

Zane sighed. He hoped he could get in and out of town without running into Zoe. "Actually, I'm packing. I can't tell you where I went and I can't tell you where I'm going."

"How'd you become so popular with the uniforms?"

"It's not directly for them."

"When will you be back this time?"

"Zoe, I'm not sure. It could be a long time."

"What, a month, two months?"

"I don't know. Listen, I gotta run to Global to catch a ride to my flight, okay?"

Zoe backed up from Zane and started to get a bit hyper. "You're starting to act like Dad. He was always going off and not talking about it."

"Come on, Zoe, I'm sorry… I'm learning what the word classified really means. And it sucks."

"Yeah, whatever. I'll see you when you get back!"

Zoe left the apartment. Zane booted up his laptop and wrote a note to her, printed it, and sealed it in an envelope that he labeled "For Zoe Carter, May 26, 2018."

* * *

"Fargo," Allison said as she and Scott walked into his office, "can we have the room for a few minutes?" Henry and Jo had gone their separate ways, so Fargo and Haley were the only two still in the room.

"I need to go put Henry in the system as authorized for Section 5 access without an escort," Fargo said. "That has to be done down there. Back in five."

"Thanks," Scott said. Haley started to walk out behind Fargo. "Not you."

"Yeah," Haley said as Fargo closed his door, "I didn't think I'd get off that easy."

Allison pointed to the couch and asked Haley to sit with her. Scott propped himself up on the front edge of Fargo's desk. "Haley, Scott told me that you had a brief idea about staying in this time."

"A brief time. I guess that's not really possible now, is it?"

"I just did a couple tests on Scott's leg…"

"You're talking about him like he's not standing right here."

"I'm still getting used to being a medical doctor again. I used to sit behind that desk. I'm sorry."

"I guess I don't take bad news well. How bad is it?"

"You remember when we were on the ship and Zoe, our Zoe, told us that if the tumor got to 20 centimeters, she'd have to try to operate on me out there?" Scott said.

"Yeah."

"We're about two and a half past that point."

"Oh, God."

"Haley," Allison said, "we don't have this particular tumor here yet. One that is closely related to it, we do have. It's treated with radiation and drugs, but if that one was as big as the one in his leg, it's certainly life-threatening and the cure would be to remove it. Unfortunately, we don't have the technology and we can't develop it, even with the plans from your library, in time to avoid removing the leg."

"What she's saying," Scott said, "is that if I'm going to stay on two legs, we have to get home. Soon. As in we go home, go through debrief, and I say hello to Zoe and Elisabeth on my way to the operating room soon."

"What are we waiting on?"

"Me," Allison said. "I need to get the supplies Tess wants to take bundled up and out to your ships. If you want to wait up here, you can. We'll only be half an hour and then you should be able to take off."

Tess called Allison and arranged to stay at the landing site until everyone arrived. Henry and Fargo made their way from Section 5 back to Fargo's rotunda-side office.

"I guess Tess called you and told you what's going down?" Scott asked.

"We're going to keep her involved in the project. I filled Fargo in on it. When it comes time to accept, we'll have ways of fudging things, so at least that part of the timeline will stay consistent. If you two are ready, Jack and Tess are waiting out at the site for us, Allison's going to be about ten minutes behind us, and Zane is on his way there now."

"I'm more than ready," Scott said. "Let's do this. Dr. Fargo, thank you for the hospitality."

"Good luck on your trip home, Commander."

Just before dark, all parts of the trip to the future assembled on top of the hill at the landing site. The winds calmed a bit, down to a brisk 50 kph.

"Allison," Zane said, "give this to Zoe. On the date specified, please, and not before."

"Why that date?" Allison asked as she looked at the envelope. "And why are you trusting me with it?"

"Because you don't want this timeline screwed up. So I'll trust you to do just the right thing and nothing else."

"I'll see that she gets it."

"Allison," Tess said, "Fargo's going to tag my storage locker with a time capsule seal. Let's hope I see my stuff again."

"I hope you do," Allison said. "Tess, I didn't mean for you to…"

"Don't worry about it. I know the truth now. I'm okay. You and Jack have a good life… and I mean that sincerely. Now that I know, I think my Jack had eyes for you then too."

"It's time," Henry yelled across the whole hilltop. "Straight up will give you the most time to get away while the station's on the far side of the planet."

"Gotta go," Tess said. "Be good, you two. Henry, make me proud, the project's got both our names on it."

"And it still will," Henry said. "Good luck, Tess."

Scott, Tess, and Zane boarded their ships and fired up the engines. "Who's got the words?" Scott asked as the two fighters raced into the stratosphere.

"I'll take it," Zane said. "Goodbye 2010, hello 3635. We hope anyway."

"After we explain all this to a woman who probably knows it all anyway," Scott said, "I'll buy all the drinks for us to get sloppy drunk. Tess, you in?"

"Absolutely. Zane will have to figure out how to get us all home safe though. He'll sit out!"

"Do you think they'll make it?" Jack asked. He, Allison, and Henry stood by their vehicles watching the two ships head off into space.

"I think they'll be okay," Henry said. "They have a sound plan. I just wish I knew what they had to run from here. Allison?"

"Can't help you. Zane told me not to look and that's what I'm gonna do. Not look. Come on, let's get some hot chocolate and get in front of the fire at Café Diem."

"I'm in," Jack said. "Henry, call Grace, make it a foursome."

"Sounds good to me."

Three hours later, after flying to Earth's future position and recomputing the course that would intersect the window that delivered the two ships to 2010, a signal light came on in each cockpit indicating the fighters had once again connected to the future's computer network. The ships flew a few light years away from the event and stopped automatically. Their position was in a gap between the Milky Way's spiral arms, so no stars were nearby.

"Backup's running," Haley said. "31 minutes to completion. It's July 6th, 1315 hours. We made it back exactly at the time expected."

"Thank God for that," Scott said. "Should I make the call?"

"You should call her before she calls us."

"Copy that. SF-6 Alpha 3732259428 Delta, flight of two, calling AMHS Earth for the Fleet Admiral," Scott said on a separate frequency.

"You have communications that can reach Earth from here?" Tess asked on the intercom.

"Sure do," Scott said. "It's one of the gigantic advantages the Alliance actually has. They're calling her office and she should answer, especially if she's expecting the call from us."

"This is the Fleet Admiral," Scott heard in his helmet. "428 Delta, I'll assume you know how to answer this. Did you take it out?"

"Yes, ma'am, we did. We're running a file check to verify our data files. Once that's complete, we'll plot a course and navigate around the window and be back on the base in about three and a half hours. Admiral, we are heavy two souls as well."

"Anyone we can bring up to speed and use?"

"Absolutely. How's Zoe?"

"I told her what was happening. I'll call her and tell her I'm going to have you for about a day before you get to go home though. We have a lot to talk about."

"Understood. We can't wait to come home."

"You're aware of the Arcturian involvement in this situation, correct?"

"I am."

"Part of your debrief will be in front of their representatives. Since we discovered what happened, they've been in it with Earth."

"Not a problem, ma'am. One of their people gave me a clue or two. Admiral, I'd like to finish up this check and get out of here."

"Carry on, Commander. AMHS out."

Zane and Tess nervously waited for the results of the fact checking. In the end, they would both be upset.

"Scott," Haley said on a channel for just the front seaters, "this isn't good."

"No, it's not." Scott was reading a list of files quarantined as incorrect. He didn't find Zoe Carter's obituary among them, but he did find her father's. The date had changed.

"What happened?" Tess asked. "Did it work?"

"You and Henry still authored the redefinition of the galaxy theory. But no, what Zane wanted to change didn't change, and in fact, it got worse."

"How the hell did that happen?" Tess asked with a huge shock.

"Dr. Zoe Carter still boarded the plane. So did Dr. Allison Blake-Carter and Sheriff Jack Carter of Eureka, Oregon." Scott put the information on the rear monitor. "All three of them were on the flight, still on 25 May 2018. When we get back to Earth, you two are going to have to talk to my boss, but I'll have her to myself before you get in the mix. I'll tell her to keep you two together. I know he didn't like you before all this, but do you think he'll pay attention to you and keep it together?"

"I think so. Let me talk to him now."

"Button 1, all call. Haley, set the course and take us to the base."

"Copy that," Haley said. "Plotting now."

"Zane," Tess said, "it didn't work. I'm sorry."

"How bad is it?" Zane asked. "Are we in the right time?"

"The trip worked. Allison and Jack got her to fly, as best we can guess anyway. I know it's not going to mean a lot…"

"I need to process," Zane said as the stars outside the cockpits disappeared. "All this and I couldn't save her."

"You gonna let me help?" Tess asked.

"Someday. Not now."


End file.
